Summary Of The Story 'My Name' By Esperanza

“ Names/ nicknames” is a short story by Julia Alvarez that goes over Julia’s life with her culture. As she tries to follow up with her Dominican culture and her life in the US. The author explores the importance of names and how they shape our identities. Alvarez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, reflects on how her name was mispronounced, misspelled and also misunderstood in her new home in the U.S. She tells the power of a name and how it can connect us to our original homes and roots.

In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza’s name causes her to feels trapped and hopeful for a new identity. When Esperanza says “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window” (Page 11) in My Name. The quote is talking about how even though Esperanza shares a name with her great-grandma she does not want to share her sadness in life. This quote is important because Esperanza feels trapped because of many different things including her name and her social economic status. However, her name is something she can never really get away from unless she goes through the difficult process of changing.

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

In the novel,The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses a powerful collection of imagery however, one of the strongest examples would be in the chapter My Name, which displays Esperanza’s insecurities in a land who struggles to accept her. “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting,” (Cisneros pg.10). Esperanza explains the meaning of hope for Hispanic people in a few simple words: sadness and waiting. For millions, it represents the wait of a new life, a better life for them. It’s sadness, knowing many reject them in a land they were promised opportunity. This motif of repudiation and racial discrimination appears frequently throughout the novel which greatly affects Esperanza’s life.

“ Esperanza felt Alfonso behind her , putting his hands on her shoulders. She felt the blood drain from her face”. This quote showed Esperanza worried and thinking about what was going to happen next. She had already lost her Papa, she couldn’t lose Mama.. This was a major challenge that Esperanza had to face as an

She says "I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more life than the real me, the one nobody sees"(page 11 My Name) Esperanza was a very

A poignant figure in Esperanza’s life is her own grandmother. In fact, Esperanza was given her birth name after her grandmother. A touching gesture that came from good faith. A name may have some value, but for Esperanza there was a high intrinsic quality to such a simple component. Despite, never encountering her own grandmother in person, Esperanza was grateful to have fond memories by carrying her legacy through her name. Life’s motto concerns dealing with adversity and carrying the legacy of one’s family eternally. Being confident and smart was the only way to live by. No man was needed to help raise and nurture herself. Her grandmother instilled in Esperanza a sense of fortitude and independence. It is sad that a regret of Esperanza is linked to her grandmother, further illustrating the physical and mental hardships one can endure in

Esperanza is an only child in her family, and during this time it was not acceptable for woman to own land. When Esperanza’s papa gets killed there were no other men in the family, so the land that Esperanza had grew up on and loved would soon all be taken away, unless her mama sacrificers herself and marries the rude brother of Esperanza’s papa. This idea of men owning land is one main reason why Esperanza’s family must migrate to California. If Esperanza was male, this story would not exist because the land would be given to her. Since Esperanza is a female, the story has a complication in the plot that needs to be overcame. This is the first obstacle that Esperanza must triumph over: leaving home to somewhere unknown.

After Esperanza reads Aunt Lupe one of her poems, her aunt tells her that she might be able to use her writing to be set free and find her real identity; however, Esperanza didn’t figure out the real meaning of her aunt’s words until her aunt passed away. After her aunt dies, Esperanza is confronted by shame and guilt, which also happen to be the feelings that Aunt Lupe felt in the years that took her to pass away (she was embarrassed to be a burden on her family for so many

The main idea of “My Name” was to specify that the narrator name was a huge burden on her, which she does not seem to like or want to be defined by. The text tells us that the effect of words can be a burden on individual, which leaves the lasting effect of negativity and drought. Sandra Cisneros purpose on writing “My Name” was to indicate how big of an impact a person's name can have on their reflection of the who they are and who they are bound to be, in others words a name is more than a word given to you the people who named you. This brings up issues mainly identity and sense of reassurance. The background of this excerpt is from the book The House on Mango Street (1984) by Sandra Cisneros. The story is organized in short paragraphs, which made the story much more effective by keeping it simple, but providing as much as information regarding identity, culture, and doubt. The tone of this story in very negative, because the narrator Esperanza is

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

It means sadness, it means waiting” (10). Not only is Esperanza’s name a way to trace her origin but it is also symbolic to the book as a whole. Her name illustrates how the Spanish inside her is sad and it is putting her in a position that is weighing her down and keeping her from becoming someone. The English counterpart is what is keeping her going and motivated to find a way to escape Mango Street and all it encompasses. Just like a genuine immigrants dream when they come to America, Esperanza’s name means “hope” and she uses this hope for a better life to “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away” (110). Cisneros uses the name of her character to give her a place in a Latino setting and start expounding on her thoughts and feelings that come with that life.

In "My Name, "She looked out the window her whole life, they way so many women sit, with their sadness on an elbow". Abuse to Rafaela, again subtle because she does not go out, in fear of husband. Poverty on Loomis, Keeler and Paulina; poverty is a way of life. The impact is for all generations, the parents who cannot get out, the children that see it and the little ones who cannot know any better. The opportunities are limited in the barrio. Esperanza was embarrassed when she pointed to her house "there". "There?", as if there was no place for a girl to live. But survival is instinctive and there is a certain amount of barrio pride "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we are dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake." The victim of being called a "rice sandwich". Hurt by the sister superior as she points to a row of ugly houses reminding Esperanza of the sin of being poor.

Esperanza was a little girl who always felt like she was destined to have more than what she had, which, quite frankly wasn’t a lot. She

A name is not just what you’re called, it is who you are. It is what you stand for and ultimately defines you as a person. Growing up, I used to think my name did not fit me and that nothing that my name stood for had anything to do with me. Now that I am older, I understand the real meaning of my name and how the traits that are connected with my name relate to the person that I have become and continue to develop into. My name represents who I am and who I plan to be.