The House on Mango Street For my second quarter book report, I chose to read the classic book, "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros. The novel is a coming of age story about a young girl finding her place in the world. The story tells about a young girl finding who grows throughout the story. She goes through puberty. As she is going through this change, she realizes her and her friends are starting to like the attention of boys. Along the way, she is brought down, pushed away, and even sexually assaulted. The young girl's name is Esperanza, and she is trying to find her place on Mango Street. The story takes place over one year, (a date that is not stated) in a poor Chicago neighborhood for Latinos. The protagonist in the book is Esperanza, the narrator. Her opposing forces are her neighborhood and the world. Esperanza is a round character, because she is very outgoing, experimental, and curious. She is also a dynamic character. Throughout the story she experiences hormonal changes that affect her feelings, thoughts, and friendships. Because the antagonist is not a human, it has no character traits. Esperanza feels like she belongs somewhere other than Mango Street. She feels as if she cannot live her life to the fullest potential there. She strongly wishes she could leave her neighborhood behind. She observes other women, and makes new friendships in hopes to find where she belongs. The friend she gets the closest with is Sally. Sally is sexually
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
As Esperanza goes into detail,The more Esperanza describes her neighbors the more Esperanza struggles with her place in society and desires to leave her neighborhood.
Esperanza has a variety of female role models in her life. Many are trapped in abusive relationships, waiting for others to change their live. Esperanza had many struggles in her life, not growing up where and how she wanted to so role models were very important to her. These role models showed her the way she didn't
Hook: House on Mango Street is a narrative book about one girl named Esperanza who live in Mango street and tell us that what is happening to Mango Street at the point view of Esperanza.
Esperanza, a strong- willed girl who dreams big despite her surroundings and restrictions, is the main character in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza represents the females of her poor and impoverished neighborhood who wish to change and better themselves. She desires both sexuality and autonomy of marriage, hoping to break the typical life cycle of woman in her family and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she goes through many different changes in search of identity and maturity, seeking self-reliance and interdependence, through insecure ideas such as owning her own house, instead of seeking comfort and in one’s self. Esperanza matures as she begins to see the difference. She evolves from an insecure girl to a
The first time Esperanza makes an appearance in the book, she is younger and easily manipulated, especially by her friends. Esperanza meets a girl named Cathy, a snobby girl that lived on Mango Street. When Cathy tells Esperanza “Okay, I’ll be your friend. But only until next Tuesday. That’s when we move away.” Then as if she forgot I had just moved in, she says the neighborhood is getting bad” (13) This was a racist statement towards Esperanza and her family, something she doesn’t quite understand yet because Esperanza thinks Cathy forgot they moved in, yet she was actually being racist. This is the first time Esperanza is exposed to racism in the book, therefore exposing her to the outside world. Later in the book, Esperanza meets Sally, a beautiful girl with shiny black hair, that all she seemingly just wants is to love, and Esperanza wants to be just like her. “I like your black coat and the shoes you wear, where did you get them? I want to buy shoes just like yours.” (82) Sally and Esperanza become friends, but later in the story, in the chapter Red Clowns, Esperanza is put in a dangerous situation where Sally walks off
Throughout the course of Mango Street, Esperanza’s relationship towards her house change. As time passes her feelings about the house itself change and the emotional impact of the house of her changes as well. Esperanza’s house on Mango Street symbolizes her Mexican culture. For so long she has wanted to leave it. She envisions a different type of life than what she is used to - moving from house to house. “this house is going to be different / my life is going to be different”. One can look at all the things she envisions - the "trappings of the good life" such as the running water, the garden etc. as symbols for the new life.
In conclusion, we know that Esperanza’s negativity of herself begins to slowly change as she slowly experience what accepting means and how she began to accept where she was from . Throughout this book, Cisnero showed us accepting is an important part of growing in life as well as determining the true you. In the beginning she hated her life always wanted to escape out of Mango Street versus the end she says she is going to come back. From the beginning to the end, Esperanza finally accepted where she was from and how Mango Street has developed who she became
Eventually, Esperanza decides she does not need to set herself apart from the others in her
Esperanza had always desired a new home, but realizes Mango Street will always be a part of her. “I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it” (5). At first Esperanza wanted an escape from Mango Street, she was embarrassed of where she came from. But as she grows as a person and is exposed to devastations in other people's lives around her, she realizes something much more ugly than just the looks of Mango Street. “You must keep writing. It will keep you free, and I said yes, but at that time I didn’t know what she meant” (61). Writing kept Esperanza free, and helped her cope with her problems. Esperanza later perceives why her aunt wanted her to continue writing, because not everyone had something to set them free from Mango Street. “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones who cannot out”(110). Instead of leaving to never return, Esperanza realizes the women in her community have it
The term "role model" may evoke images of superheroes, celebrities, or famous athletes. Positive role models are needed to give humans some type of direction in life, but what about a negative role model? A negative role model can be just as helpful as a so-called “positive” role model. It can be useful to look at an unpropitious person and use him or her as an example of what you do not want to become. The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, allows the reader to realize what a negative role model can teach. The main character Esperanza has a variety of role models in her life, some favorable and some unfavorable. Many are trapped in abusive relationships, waiting
Esperanza is a shy but a very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home now, with beautiful flowers in their luscious garden and a room for everyone to live in comfortably all because of the unsatisfied face the nun made that one afternoon--when she moves to the house of Mango Street. She thinks it’s going to be a “grand house on a hill that will have a bedroom for everyone and at least three washrooms so when they took a bath they would not have to tell everybody.” (Cinceros 4) Reality is so different for her when her dream is shot down in a heartbeat when she
In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl from a Latino heritage is given birth to. Not literally, but in the sense of characterization. Esperanza is a fictional character made up by Cisneros to bring about sensitive, alert, and rich literature. She is the protagonist in the novel and is used to depict a female’s life growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Cisneros creates the illusion that Esperanza is a real human being to communicate the struggles of growing up as a Latina immigrant in a modern world, by giving her a name, elaborating her thoughts and feelings, and illustrating her growth as a person through major events.
Kids usually don't act their age. They either act older or younger. They grow up too fast or too slow. In the book, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, a girl named Esperanza moves to house on Mango Street and doesn't seem to fit in. She meets a girl named Sally at her school and becomes friends with her but Sally is not a good friend. She chooses boys over Esperanza and abandones her a couple of times to be with boys.Ezperanza cant fit in because she is growing up too slow while Sally, who is not a good friend is growing up too fast .Sandra Cisneros develops the theme through character conflicts. The theme of House on Mango Street is not to grow up too fast or too slow.
Esperanza is led by the dream to leave Mango Street at once, nevertheless she knows that she will have to return one day to help and encourage all those who will fallen in the big hole of hopelessness. She can leave Mango Street but she can not escape