Shooting An Elephant

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

First, the book starts off telling the story of how Esperanza grew up in a loving wealthy family who owned El Rancho de las Rosas in Aguascalientes, Mexico. She was surrounded by generations of family members who loved her. The family had lots of servants who worked for them during the grape harvest season and they also helped them with everything else during the off season. Esperanza was a young girl who really didn’t understand poverty and was known to have a snobbish attitude at times when she was little because of her family’s wealth. She was surrounded by families that were just as wealthy as her own so poverty was not a norm in their community. There are many examples of her snobby ways in the beginning of book like when she first boarded a train in Mexico and realizes that she and her friend definitely wouldn’t be traveling first class. Her reaction to this was basically like: "You expect me to travel coach?! Yeah right." It was evident Esperanza did not use to a present lifestyle. Esperanza father was her biggest mentor and she followed his teachings very closely. After the death of her father, it was people like Abuelita, Mama, and Miguel that help keep Esperanza diva 'tude in check which helped keep her

“Shooting an Elephant” is an essay written by George Orwell, first published in the journal New Writing in 1936. In this essay, the author tells his own story about when he was working as a police officer for the Indian Imperial Police in Burma.

The third is Sally, who shows Esperanza all the dangers and scary things of adulthood. Esperanza can share almost all her feelings with Sally. “Sally, do you sometimes wish you didn’t have to go home? Do you wish your feet would one day keep walking and take you far away from Mango Street, far away and maybe your feet would stop in front of a house, a nice one with flowers and big windows and steps for you to climb up two by two upstairs to where a room is waiting for you.” (Cisneros 82). This is something Esperanza never even told her family, and shows that she had a big desire to leave Mango Street, but cannot yet. Sally introduced Esperanza to situations in life that Esperanza realized she is not ready for yet, and is still afraid of.  “Sally, you lied. It wasn’t what you said at all. What he did. Where he touched me. I didn’t want it, Sally. The way they said it, the way it’s supposed to be, all the storybooks and movies, why did you lie to me?” (Cisneros 99).  All the situations Sally introduced to Esperanza influenced her the most because Esperanza listens to her advice, and she is closest to Sally. Finally there is Minerva. Only a little older than Esperanza, Minerva already has two kids and a husband who has left her, causing Minerva to regret her life on Mango Street. “Minerva cries because she is so unlucky.” (Cisneros 84) Seeing this makes Esperanza think about how if she stays on Mango Street, She will be trapped

Esperanza does not want to be like the other women in her town, always locked inside and the only freedom they have is a small window. Her great-grandmother was a role model, she showed Esperanza the way she did not want to

“Shooting an Elephant” is a short anecdote written by George Orwell. The story depicts a young man, Orwell, who has to decide whether to bend the rules for his superiors or to follow his own path. George Orwell works as the sub-divisional police officer of Moulmein, a town in the British colony of Burma. He, along with the rest of the English military are disrespected by the Burmese due to the English invading their territory and taking over. Over time, Orwell, the narrator, has already begun to question the presence of the British in the Far East. He states, theoretically and secretly, he was “all for the Burmese and all against their oppressors, the British.” Orwell describes himself as “young and ill-educated,” bitterly hating his job. Orwell uses powerful imagery and diction to convey a depressing and sadistic tone to the story. At the end of the story, he faces a dilemma: to kill the elephant or not.

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

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.

The perspective and ideas given by Orwell show his true character and lessens the overall power set up for him. Although Orwell is a

This relates to the theme of the struggle for self definition, because at first Esperanza was under the impression she could change a man, but as she’s exposed to these horrible encounters she comes to the conclusion that boys and girls live in different worlds.

Orwell repeats the he does not want to kill it and the readers sympathize with

When a character is exposed to an incident in which his or her perspective is forever changed, he or she will gain knowledge and maturity. An event such as being raped is an example of how one can lose his or her innocence. The House on Mango Street leads the reader into analyzing his or her own life. It shows how Esperanza’s pure view of life has changed to become a more sophisticated and realistic one. Growing up is something that everyone, at one point or another, goes through. This loss of innocence is something that is unavoidable and irreversible. When people lose their innocence, they gain maturity and gain knowledge. When a person losing the pureness in them, they open their eyes and they are able to see the world for what it really

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

At first, she was a strong woman, but after her forced marriage she spent most of her days looking out a window and hoping for escape. Explaining the interaction between both sexes of children on Mango Street, Esperanza states that the boys and the girls live in separate worlds. Even at a young age, divisions between gender are present among the characters. By living in separate worlds, they are demonstrating real life situations that are already occurring in society at that time period. All in all, unfair gender roles in society is another important theme illustrated in the beginning of the novel.

In order to keep the reader engaged with his essay, Orwell uses his past to create situations where the reader empathizes with his younger self. He does this by making sure to stress the emotions he felt during his