Esperanza's Four Skinny Trees

In the book “The House on Mango Street” written by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza shows growth throughout the book. The growth she shows are aging and maturity. Throughout the book and the vignettes, Esperanza looks behind at her past and see what lessons she has learned over time. As she gets older, she gets more mature and expands her thinking.

All the people on Mango Street were struggling to get by, but they seemed satisfied with just making it. Esperanza was not. There were characters like Esperanza’s mother who was a “smart cookie,” and could’ve been anything, but she let shame get the best of her and dropped out of school. There was also Rafaela who got married before the 8th grade just so she could move into her own house, but her husband never let her leave the house afterward. He never let her see her friends, and the highlight of her week was getting coconut or papaya juice from someone who would send it up in a paper bag attached to a clothespin since she couldn’t leave the house. Lastly, there was the time when she was left stranded by the tilt-a- whirl waiting for a friend that never came back and got molested by a group of boys. The only witnesses were the red clown statues that seemed to be laughing at her. Nevertheless, she let none of this stopped her from going forward and perusing her dream. She still seemed to be struggling with a sense of belonging, but maybe that’s because she didn’t.

“I am an ugly daughter,” she says. “I am the one nobody comes for” (109). She feels she can relate to the four skinny trees outside her window. “Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine” (93). Just as the trees survive under a harsh environment, Esperanza finds difficulty in accepting the neighborhood in which she lives. She is very self-conscious about her name, whose mispronunciation by teachers and peers at school sounds ugly to her ears. She struggles with jealousy of her younger sister Nenny and cynically says that she “has pretty eyes and it’s easy to talk…if you are pretty” (109). Ashamed of most everything she identifies with, Esperanza is maturing with a very low perception of herself. She is not content with her home and surroundings, and cannot be until she is happy with her own character.

As a young girl, Esperanza is a young girl who looks at life from experience of living in poverty, where many do not question their experience. She is a shy, but very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home, with beautiful flowers and a room for everyone. When she moves to the house of Mango Street, reality is so different than the dream. In this story, hope (Esperanza) sustains tragedy. The house she dreamed of was another on. It was one of her own. One where she did not have to share a bedroom with everyone. That included her mother, father and two siblings. The run down tiny house has "bricks crumbling in places". The one she dreamed of had a great big yard, trees and 'grass growing without a fence'. She did not want to abandon

In life many people set goals for themselves. For some people it maybe a goal such as obtaining a high test grade and for others it maybe to one day own a race car. Everybody has a different outlook on life and everyone has different goals in which they one day hope to achieve. The people who achieve their goals are those who are motivated and determined to do so. When these goals are achieved it is then when you are a hero to yourself.

“I am tired of looking at what we can’t have.” This particular quote explains that

In life, we are often deeply influenced by the people who surround us. Consider the age-old adage “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”; this familiar saying reminds us that, in life, we gravitate toward people who appeal to us, and those people can have a great impact on who we are and the choices we make. In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza meets many women who play a role in her life. Some of the women impact her in negative ways, but others help her to see that she can make more of her life than what her Chicago neighborhood offers. Of all the women in Esperanza’s life, Esperanza is most influenced by her mother and Alicia because they teach her to rely on herself in order to escape Mango Street.

For example as stated on page 4, “ Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence. This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed. But the house on Mango street is not the way they told at all.”.When the reality of her parents expectations didn’t go the way hoped it created the initial reason for Esperanza’s dream about leaving Mango Street . If their house wasn’t that much of a downgrade to what they have wanted ,Esperanza may not have felt the need to dream about a whole new house of her own. As her character continues to grow, her reason of wanting her own house becomes much more meaningful . Essentially, Esperanza's house will not only show her taste in real estate, but her true self . In other words , her house will act as a safe haven , the place she can escape to express herself and show her true nature. Illustrated on page 87 ,” One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask,Can I come in? I’ll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I

"My Grandparents, My Parents and Me." My Grandparents My Parents, Mis Abuelos Mis Padres, Frida Kahlo, C0160. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May

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.

Esperanza looks to the trees when morose to keep up her optimistic thinking. The four skinny trees represent pillars of hope and strength for her. Like Alicia in the vignette, Alicia Who Sees Mice, the trees act as a role model and a form of inspiration for Esperanza. Due to Alicia’s determination and persistence, Esperanza realizes that she is, indeed, able to abscond Mango Street. For example, Cisneros writes “When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees” (75).

In the vignette, "Four Skinny Trees," Cisneros uses personification, repetition, and rhyme to draw parallels between Esperanza hardships and the trees. Toward the beginning, Esperanza says that the trees have "skinny necks and pointy elbows just like [hers] (Cisneros 74). " She is making it obvious to the reader that she physically sees herself as the trees. Likewise, she conjoins her mental attributes to the trees by using repetition.

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

When one is faced with reality they find out if they want to prevent it or let it happen. Esperanza feels depressed with her life and the conditions that she is living in, nobody gets what she is going through, but the trees “They are the only ones who understand [her]. [She is] the only one who understands [the trees]... Four who do not belong here but are here” Esperanza relates to the trees because she is met with the reality that she sticks out in this society (Chisneros Page #). Since she is different from society, she wants to belong and begins to belong more as she grows up and

This study represents the first attempt to characterize Colletotrichum species associated with anthracnose of mango leaves in Guangxi Province, China using morphological identification and phylogenetic analysis. In the present study, morphological characteristics of the isolates agreed with the description of C. gloeosporioides, but cultural characteristics, which may be diverse due to cultural conditions, and conidial morphology cannot distinguish between species in the C. gloeosporioides complex (Weir et al. 2012). Based on morphological identification, single genes sequence analysis and the five-gene-combined phylogenetic analysis, the isolates obtained from mango in Guangxi included in this study belongs to the C. gloeosporioides