Machismo In House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

Esperanza’s friend Sally is one of the reasons that Esperanza really questions what it is to grow up. Sally wears make-up and appears to challenge the men in her life until they retaliate, like her father who beats and rapes her. In the chapter “The Monkey Garden” Sally is flirting with a group of boys and Esperanza can not understand why Sally will not play with her and the other girls. Then Esperanza thinks that Sally needs recusing from Tito and the other boys when they demand a kiss for the keys they took from her. Sally tells Esperanza to go away and she finally understands that Sally wanted to be with the boys. After meeting Sally and becoming more aware of her own sexuality Esperanza “decided to not grow up tame.”(88). She knows that

When passing through a poor neighborhood, have you ever thought, “this place is dangerous.” even though you just see what’s on the surface? The dirty buildings, run down stores, and unkempt roads persuade us to perceive that neighborhood in a negative light, but you might do this unconsciously because ever since we were young, socioeconomic status is what separates the “good”, from the “bad”. Sandra Cisneros’, House on Mango Street, shows us how harmful having a previous notion of a place or person can be. In the novel, we meet Esperanza Cordero, a girl whose parents never strived above the working class. Because of their low income, they are forced to move into neglected homes on the verge of crumbling, their final stop being Mango

Imagine feeling like you don’t belong and never will, or that the odds of your success is a slim chance to none. The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros, leads us into a world of poverty, broken dreams, and slithers of hope. The House on Mango Street follows the life of a young girl by the name of Esperanza Cordero, who occupies her childhood in an indigent Latino neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. The books expresses her dire need to have a place where she can call home, and escape the harsh reality of her expected life. Though, her life on Mango Street is bearable with help of her little sister Nenny, her two best friends Rachel and Lucy, and her other friend Sally. On her journey to adulthood, Sandra Cisneros will show how Esperanza assimilates into a mature young lady, who truly find her identity, and develops emotionally as well as physically.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois. Cisneros grew up in a Latino family around the 1950s and 1960s. She had a Mexican father and Chicano mother. Cisneros was encouraged by her mother to read and was not insisted with spending all of her time performing classic “women’s work”. Cisneros welcomes her culture with open arms, but acknowledges the unjustness between the genders within. Having experience growing up in a poor neighborhood in a working class family while facing the difficulties created by racism, sexism, and her status, Esperanza longed to leave the barrio. Later, she finds her capability to succeed individually and find a “home with herself”; she worked to recreate some Chicano stereotypes for her community. Cisneros didn’t want to

In the collection of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops the theme that people should not be devalued because of their financial circumstances through metaphors of classism, the motif of shame, and the contrast between minor characters Alicia and Esperanza’s mother. Esperanza, the protagonist, is a Mexican-American adolescent living in the rural Chicago region. She occupies a house on Mango Street with her father, mother, two brothers, Carlos and Kiki, and little sister, Nenny. Mango Street is filled with low-income families, like Esperanza’s, trying to adapt to their difficult circumstances. Esperanza realizes it is difficult, but she dreams of leaving her house and Mango Street altogether.

Sexism is a challenge almost all women face. In a way, sexism can be beneficial because it can motivate women to defy society's standards and anything holding them back. However, in The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros, shows both sides of sexism, and how it can motivate women. Sexism can also make women give up and not accomplish anything. While Cisneros has the protagonist fight off sexism, Esperanza runs into many cases of sexism where the women just give up. Similarly, with The Help, author Kathryn Stockett, also shows both the positive and negative side of sexism. Skeeter, the protagonist fights off sexism to gain freedom, and in doing so she finds that all her friends don’t want to change the roles they have. Both

Identity is defined as “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is” (Oxford University Press). Personal identity deals with questions that arise about ourselves by virtue of our being people. Some of these questions are familiar that happen to all of us every once in a while: What am I? When did I begin? What will happen to me when I die? There are many different categories that define us as people (Olson). Our Race, Class, and Culture define who we are so much that it affects how we should live our life.

Society has built a role for women. And there’s no better example of this idea than The House on Mango Street, in which Esperanza describes specific moments of her life which lead her to believe in women independence and feminism. She has different ideas and thoughts on the definition of women and what they should be. Esperanza doesn’t fit into the constructed definition Mango Street has of how women should be.

Sandra Cisneros is a latina born in Chicago in 1954. She is the only daughter out of seven of her siblings. She worked as a teacher and counselor to high-school dropouts, as an artist-in-the-schools where she taught creative writing at every level except first grade and pre-school, a college recruiter, an arts administrator, and as a visiting writer at a number of universities including the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. When she began writing books it was soon translated into many languages such as Spanish, French, Dutch, Italian and many more. She is very proud of her family. Her grandfather even played piano for the mexican president. She is know mostly for her famous book, ‘The House on Mango Street’. The book was based off her neighborhood that she grew up In Chicago. In 1995,

Throughout the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, we see the main character, Esperanza, overcome several obstacles in her life and evolve as the novella progresses. Esperanza feels empowered by many things in her life, but most often we see her use her writing as an empowering vehicle for her escape from all of her troubles in her day to day life.

People from all over the world change, change in either mentality, thoughts, maturity, physically, mentally, appearance, feelings and etc. What causes the transformation of that person is important, but how much did it affect them is also crucial. In Sandra Cisneros novel, entitled The House on Mango Street,the story depicts a Latina girl who transform throughout her time being on Mango Street. The girl named Esperanza is to faced obstacles of female oppression that she witnesses in the life of women on her street who they depends on men to bring them out of the street. In The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses characterization to express the

She gets excited when boys look at her on the streets. But her illusion of true love is destroyed by sexual violence. Her friend Sally’s behaviour towards boys contributes to Esperanza’s caution and distance by dealing with the opposite sex, too. Nevertheless, Esperanza does not stop dreaming of leaning against a car with her boyfriend in a place where that does not bother anyone. But she has set her standards higher than most of the women around her. She do not search for a man to escape from this place, she has seen too many unhappy marriages. Ruthie exemplifies such an one. She has run away from her husband and seems to be mentally disturbed. The young Rafaela is locked up by her husband because of her beauty. Nevertheless the tragic event is Sally’s which ends in abuse. Sally, Esperanza’s friend, only wanted to dream and share her love like Esperanza. Hurt and beaten by her father who just wanted to prevent the familiy’s ruin by Sally. To escape, despite of her minority, she marries a salesman. But unlike her wish, the abuse continues.

Clearly, Sandra Cisneros' writing style is one representative of a minority voice. Her amazing style allows her readers to take an active part in the minority experience. For this reason, I believe Cisneros has had a lot of influence and success in the status of minority writers, especially in the canon of what is read and taught in schools today. But, more than anything, Cisneros has shown that liberation can come through creativity and literature, and not just through geographical excursion.

The novel The House on Mango Street is filled to the brim with women who are unhappy and unsatisfied with their lives. Readers meet wives who are destined to spend their lives in the kitchen, mothers who waste away cleaning up after their kids, and girls who are stuck in a hole that they can’t escape. Through Sandra Cisneros’s use of literary devices such as motifs, symbolism, and imagery, we are able to learn that the women end up in these situations by conforming to femininity, and we find the theme of women are often held back by their own gender roles.

Feminist theory began in the late 18th century, the main goal was to diminish sexism in society and create equality for men and women. Throughout the years, women have succeeded in gaining equal rights. Unfortunately, there are still issues today. For instance, women are paid 78% of what men are paid. One novel that portrays the argument of Feminism is House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. To begin with, Men are characterized as violent and destructive beings while women are forgiving and possess magic. All the women in the book have names that mean light. Finally, the men in the book have all the power while women remain submissive.