Sandra Cisneros : The Importance Of Identity

Esperanza is confused on the meaning of her name. She is not confident, and she does not like a lot of things about herself. The author states in the vignette, “My Name”, “In English my name means hope. In spanish it means too many letters It means sadness, it means waiting” (Cisneros 10). She contradicts the meaning of her name. She does not like it. She finds it too confusing. The English and Spanish meaning are completely different. Hope and sadness are almost exact opposites. Esperanza does not know what her name means, and so she does not know who she really is. She thinks people are judging her based off of her name. She does not

In English Esperanza’s name means, “hope” (Cisneros 10), but in Spanish, it means “sadness” (Cisneros 10) and “waiting” (Cisneros 10). The word “hope” (Cisneros 10) adds a positive connotation to her name, but the words “sadness” (Cisneros 10) and “waiting” (Cisneros 10), add a negative connotation to the name. Cisneros character doesn’t like her name because she has inherited it from her great-grandmother who she describes as a “wild horse of a woman” (11), who did not want to get married, but was eventually forced into it. She never forgave her husband and spent her whole life looking out the window. Esperanza states that she does not want to inherit her great-grandmother’s “place by the window” along with her name. She wants to change her name to something that shows her true, secret self. Esperanza says; “I would like to baptize myself under a real name, a name more like the real me.” (Cisneros 11) She decides that a name such as Zeze the X would be

“My Name” by Sandra Cisneros is a short excerpt from her book The House on Mango Street (1984). In this excerpt, Cisneros narrator is a girl named Esperanza, who is telling us that her name reminds her of a lot of negatives things, including who she inherited it from. Esperanza is trying to convince us that her name is a terrible name, which is built up of negativity and bad history. She state that she was named after her great-grandmother, who was born in the Chinese year of the horse, which they have in common, and is well known for her wild customs which lead to her feeling sad and lonely all her life. Esperanza specifies that her name sound beautiful among Spanish speakers, but to non-Spanish speakers her name is pronoun funny “as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth” she says. She indicated that she would like to baptize herself under a new

Sandra Cisneros is a Latin originated American female writer. However these obstacles, she became a writer, surely one of the first female of her ethnicity. In THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, she explores her own past through the eyes of Esperanza, a Latina youth growing up in the Barrio in Chicago. In this novel, she engages the readers through a variety of different literary devices such as Imagery, Personification, and even Simile.

No matter how much a person desires to live according to their personal autonomy, he or she will never escape the influence of societal forces. Explicitly or subtlety, these forces shape our individuality. One intriguing manner that these societal forces manifests itself in is our name. As Ruth Graham writes, “It’s becoming increasingly clear today that names carry a wealth of information about the world around us, the family we arrived in, the moment we were born—and that they mark us as part of cultural currents bigger than we realize.” Names alone provide evidence that individuals are made by interactions with social institutions and groups. Ultimately, the inescapable nature of society’s influence demands individuals to ponder how much personal autonomy is actually autonomous and to what extent does the pursuit of personal autonomy lead to a life of emptiness and vanity.

Sandra Cisneros’ use of literary elements, such as voice, repetition, and figurative language, causes the reader to that it takes a long time to grow up.

In the chapter “My Name” Esperanza wants to change her name so that she can define herself on her own terms and not by her family’s heritage. Her goal is to separate herself from her parents and sister Nenny in order to shape her own life, and changing her name seems an important first step to Esperanza. Later, in the chapters “Hips” and “The First Job”, Esperanza becomes more sexually aware, and because of this she wants to be “beautiful and cruel” so men will like her but not hurt her. She pursues this goal by becoming friends with Sally, who serves almost as a foil for Esperanza by the end of the novel. After Esperanza is assaulted by some of Sally’s boy companions, Esperanza decides she doesn’t want to define herself as “beautiful but cruel” anymore and she is, once again, unsure of who she is. Eventually, Esperanza concludes that she does not need to separate herself from the people on Mango Street or her family heritage by changing her name or becoming something she’s not. She decides that the best way to define herself is to become a writer. It is as a writer that she finally finds her genuine

As soon as children are born, their journey through losing their personal identity begins. They are given names like Equality, Liberty, or Union, names that at first glance seem to cause no harm. The rulers give these names in an attempt to showcase the positive outcomes of collectivism. In

There comes a point in time in an individual’s life in which their name truly becomes a part of their identity. A name is more than just a title to differentiate people; it is a part of the person. In Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood by Richard E. Kim, names play a major role on the character’s identities. The absence and importance of the names in the story make the story rich with detail and identity through something as simple as the name of a character. Names are a significant factor affecting the story and the characters throughout the novel Lost Names.

Against the backdrop of unequal behavior and discrimination towards woman during the 20th century, they appear to be more

At birth everyone is given a name by their parents. Your name is part of your identity and how you are addressed and recognized by the world. The different verities among the population created other names given to different races. These names are offensive, demeaning and are only used to refer to a person in a disrespectful manner. They can also cause a segregation among a nations people, these names are forced upon people weather they are rich or poor, old or young, male or female and are used to describe the same race of people. In the class reading "What 's in a Name? “by Henry Louis Gates he reminisces about a personal experience of his that he had with his father. In the story he describes his father was a hard worker and, because of this he was in high financial standings and, he was well respected and given privileges that at the time was rare for people of his race but he was still black and his name, his individual identity was not important instead he was given a racial identity, this is the only thing he was known as, this type of negative recognition is something many black Americans can relate to. One’s race is a predominant part of our identity and is what causes discrimination.

How would you define success? Is it a habitual and deliberate system? or is it an inconsistent string of life events? Success is universal, it has no formula, and no person is subjected to it. These writers both have their ways of claiming success but, they are different.

The meaning of names is a central focus of the novel, because names define people. Their worth and functions are summarized by the names. To some extent, the names also discourage originality. This occurs especially to

    Names are a terrible way to understand someone’s identity because names are regularly replicated. In my sixth grade class, there were three Mollys. We all had different backgrounds, different religious affiliations, and different personalities. If our names displayed who we are, wouldn’t our identities all be the same? Instead of staring at names and trying to understand their meaning, one should focus on a person’s personality, for personality depicts our identity. In fact, I have learned from experience to not infer one’s identity based on their name. For instance, in middle school, I was mutual friends with a girl named Kassidy. One Tuesday afternoon, my friend, Katy told me that Kassidy was going to sit with us at lunch that day. I shrugged my shoulders and replied with a casual “okay”. Before Kassidy walked in, I had a whole image of her in my mind: blonde hair, cute pastel colored clothes, and religious, all stereotypes that I thought a person with an innocent name like Kassidy

Your name—it is essential for defining a person. At the core, it is one’s identity. It is who they are. It is the first thing you learn about a person, inviting judgments to ensue shortly after acquiring this bit of information. I did not have one, I was the boy without a name. It is well established residing to a niche of friends with whom you are understood is vital for the development of confidence, feelings of acceptance and belonging, and to learn and grow with. I did not have any. I was the boy who could not be understood. I was illiterate. It is in contemporary society the art of literacy is boorishly understood and accepted as a binary system, in which an individual is a 0 deemed as illiterate lacking the capacity to read or write, or a 1, those who possess the skill sets of literacy. As a child, I was a 0.