The House On Mango Street Analysis

Growing up on Mango Street, girls had to take two steps backward to take one forward. Just like ballroom dancing, women let men take the lead and sacrifice an extra step to continue moving on the floor. When Sally escaped from her father and married the marshmallow salesman, she had to give up her youth and femininity.

Judgement is a very frequent occurrence in today’s world. It usually isn’t an encouraging judgement though. Throughout the book, The House on Mango Street, the message of judgement of others being cruel is revealed. This isn’t just in Esperanza, the main character, but everyone in the book. It is important that everyone in the book progresses and matures as a person because, it causes everyone to become more together. This all proves the claim of, The House on Mango Street portrays an aspect of maturity by showing that what people imagine about others is often not how they truly act and are as a person, how they grow as a person, and what they strive to become.

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

This makes Esperanza begin to wonder about things and about her own life, and how she feels about these new sexual vibes that are coming

While Carmen helping poor people Esperanza confused because she didn’t think of poor can help each other. She was confused because the way she raised were different compared to other people. Finally, Esperanza realized that there are more profound aspects in life than being

“I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I’m me. One day I’ll jump out of my skin. I’ll shake the sky like a hundred violins” (60). In the story “The House on Mango Street”, the author Sandra Cisneros uses sentences full of imagery, metaphors, and word games, to show how self definition is a result of the people and places surrounding you. This is represented throughout the book when Esperanza wants to change her name, living in a male dominated society, and when she wishes for a new home.

Esperanza is able to look at her great grandmother and realize what she does not want to become, but also she realizes what she does want: to become a strong, independent woman.

The Novel, The House on Mango Street, was based on the writer Sandra Cisneros. She was writing this when she was living in Chicago. She was like Esperanza. She want though poverty. She has been heartbroken and deeply joyous. She inventing for herself who and what she will become. This is the life of Esperanza Cordero and based on Sandra Cisneros to all women out there.

Esperanza was glad to be able to live in a different home that they can actually call theirs, but what she doesn’t realize is that they are still being greatly impacted by poverty. She doesn’t realize this partly because her parents have been protecting her and her siblings from the neighbors and the bad things that happen. A good example of her father protecting them is on page 5 when Esperanza says, “Papa has nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out”. This quote goes to show that once again the family is subject to their poverty and that it is almost controlling their lives. Esperanza continues to believe that the neighborhood they live in is safe and that it is a good place to live in until her friend Cathy tells her about the white families in the neighborhood, and how it isn’t good enough. This is when she starts to realize what others think about the place she lives in. On page 28 Esperanza says, “Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives”.( SThis quote is another really good example of how the poverty that Esperanza grew up in is affecting her life. With Esperanza starting to notice all of these things that are bad about her neighborhood, she begins to get embarrassed about who she is and where she is from. As the book continues, Esperanza continues to grow up and understand the life

As a final point, Esperanza’s siblings also played an important role in her stages of growing up. The author uses this sentence to express that, "And then I don't know why, but I have to turn around and pretend I don't care about the box so Nenny won't see how stupid I am." (Pg. 20). This shows how Esperanza wants to be a role model for her younger sister Nenny, and this helps Esperanza become a strong independent woman as she grows up. If she never had a younger sister, Esperanza would have never learned how to become a role model for her siblings and even so other people. Without Esperanza's family and their important roles in her life, she wouldn't have become the person she grew up to be.

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

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

Esperanza Facing Challenges “Don’t be afraid to start over”. Being forced to leave your home, and make a new life for yourself and your family. Esperanza young Hispanic girl who was born a princess, than all of a sudden she’s facing challenges that she never thought she would have to deal with. Since her Papa’s death, Esperanza had to face many challenges as an immigrant. Such as learning how to do chores, dealing with Mama becoming sick with Valley Fever, than Esperanza and other Mexicans having to face discrimination in the U.S.

In “Born Bad” Esperanza remembers her Aunt Lupe, how she used to be beautiful and a good swimmer. But, for all of Esperanza’s life she had been sick. Esperanza always liked her aunt and even read her some of the poems she had written. Lupe even tells her that, “You must keep writing. It will keep you free.” One day Esperanza and her friends played a game where they were imitating people. It was on that particular day Esperanza decided to pick her aunt an on that very same day her aunt died. This chapter might seem insignificant at first because Lupe was old and sick so her death should not have been surprising. However, it is important because it shows her beginnings of becoming a writer and it shows the audience Esperanza’s background. It shows how she grew up in a very superstitious family, because she really believes that the game really caused her aunt’s death. In the book she says to herself, “Most likely I will go to hell and most likely I deserve to be there…because of what we did to Aunt Lupe.”

Esperanza never got over the incident and ever since then has been depressed but Estevan explains that “what helps {him} the most to know is that her life is going somewhere, with someone. To know she’s growing up.” Gender roles play a part in this, even though Ismene was the child of Estevan, his wife did the feeding and diapering. She became more attached to their daughter which proves the gender roles of women especially in countries like Guatemala. Estevan can now talk about her without breaking down but Esperanza has been torn apart ever since. These stories and hardships once again prove to Taylor how cruel the world is outside of what she’s familiar with. Taylor feels sympathy for the couple and wants to help with anything she can. These world issues causes Taylor to feel as if she’s changing and