The House On Mango Street Analysis

When passing through a poor neighborhood, have you ever thought, “this place is dangerous.” even though you just see what’s on the surface? The dirty buildings, run down stores, and unkempt roads persuade us to perceive that neighborhood in a negative light, but you might do this unconsciously because ever since we were young, socioeconomic status is what separates the “good”, from the “bad”. Sandra Cisneros’, House on Mango Street, shows us how harmful having a previous notion of a place or person can be. In the novel, we meet Esperanza Cordero, a girl whose parents never strived above the working class. Because of their low income, they are forced to move into neglected homes on the verge of crumbling, their final stop being Mango

In the collection of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops the theme that people should not be devalued because of their financial circumstances through metaphors of classism, the motif of shame, and the contrast between minor characters Alicia and Esperanza’s mother. Esperanza, the protagonist, is a Mexican-American adolescent living in the rural Chicago region. She occupies a house on Mango Street with her father, mother, two brothers, Carlos and Kiki, and little sister, Nenny. Mango Street is filled with low-income families, like Esperanza’s, trying to adapt to their difficult circumstances. Esperanza realizes it is difficult, but she dreams of leaving her house and Mango Street altogether.

“She walks, she talks, she cleans, she works, she IS, but she is NOT, all at once. She is here, but part of her is elsewhere for eternity” (Anonymous). This quote by an anonymous person illustrates a woman who is rooted in who she is but dreams to be someone else. She dreams to be another person, far away from her dreary life. Sandra Cisneros establishes that many young girls within the Hispanic culture represented in The House on Mango Street are forced into roles they do not wish to take, resulting in a loss of identity and ultimately, a sense of powerlessness in the girl without anyone to show her how to be powerful.

Lindsey Rietzsch once said “A negative attitude drains, a positive attitude energizes.” This quote means that having a negative attitude lowers your self versus having a positive attitude where is actually increases attitude and it energizes you by inspiring you. “The House on Mango Street” sets up in Chicago, where the narrator(Esperanza) lives on Mango Street. The House on Mango Street that Esperanza lives in is really bad condition and old. It is so small that the narrator has to share beds in the same room with her family. Esperanza begins to lower her self esteem because she does not like where she lives and every time when some asks, “Where do you live?” She wants a real house that she could point to and she thinks the House On Mango street is not. But later, along the times, Esperanza’s negativity of herself begins to slowly change by looking at nature and take a closer look at the environment she lives in. Cisnero shows that knowing and being able to accept where our background is from is an important part of growing in life also as determining the real you.

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.

Everyone who matures has a family and that family shapes that person into who they come to be. The main character, Esperanza from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, is an excellent example of that; Esperanza is an insecure young Latina girl who is shaped by her family as she grows up. In the novel, Esperanza has the perspective of life from the experience of living in poverty. Esperanza dreams of a perfect home with amazing flowers and enough rooms that everyone in her family would each have one. However, she moves to the house on Mango Street, and reality is so different from what she has dreamt of. She receives a tiny run-down house with bricks that are broken down in numerous places around the house. Throughout the

Esperanza is the strong-willed main character who wants to break free from the limitations and expectations of a women set by her community. Unlike majority of the women in her neighborhood, she dreams of her escape from this discriminatory treatment. As she blossoms from a young girl to a mature women, she comes to the realization that she can never escape, because that house on Mango Street is a part of her. She can only learn from her experience living her never flee from it. When Esperanza creates creates an original piece of poetry, she shares it with Aunt Lupe, who in return, shares some insightful advice. (60-61) Writing through all forms can allow people to escape the realities and bounds of life.

Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street tells the story of a young, teenage, Latina girl named Esperanza, living in the late twentieth century. Esperanza takes her readers through her life and adventures through each chapter of the novella where each time she learns something. She faces the troubles of racism, friendship, and strange neighborhoods and most importantly, figuring out how she wants to spend her life. Through her race and wealth, Esperanza has created her identity as a shy, poor, and ambitious person.

The novel, The House on Mango Street, focuses on a young girl who strives to figure out her identity. She continuosly struggles to find her confidence, along with who she is. People tend to struggle with self-acceptance due to society. Society analyzes each person and dissects every one of their flaws, making them want to change themselves to fit expectations. Moving to her new home, Esperanza began to spend all of her time embarrassed. She was ashamed of her new home, and also uncomfortable with her outside appearance. She felt as if her outside didn’t convey the true personality hidden inside her. All Esperanza understood was that she didn’t fit in, and that she is different. Esperanza tries to find the person she truly wants to

In the book “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros we are advised the story of the protagonist Esperanza over a sequence of short scenes. Esperanza is a adolescent lady who moved out of her old home along with her parents into a new area called Mango Street. The new house is not what Esperanza wanted, she anticipated a big, white, provincial house with a backyard. Rather, she got a tiny, red, recap apartment in a Latino area in Chicago. It is a coming of age story where Esperanza blooms in many attitudes, all over the whole book we appreciate she wants to move out of Mango Street into her own house. One of the complications that Esperanza faces is the experience of shame. This happens through House on Mango Street, Rice Sandwich, Bums in the Attic, and Monkey Garden; the first three have to do with her despise of the new house. In the scene Rice Sandwich, Esperanza ambitions to eat in the canteen with the other “special kids” rather of having to walk back home to make lunch. She asks her mom to write a letter to the nun who is the principal of the school, she doesn't accept the letter as the grammar was amateurish and asks Esperanza where she lived.

As a young girl Esperanza is asked one day where she lived by a nun from her school who happened to be walking by. Now before this moment Esperanza never really notice her living situation, all she knew is that her parents loved her and wanted her to go to school. When the nun rudely said “You live there” (Cinceros 5) and pointed at the shoddy apartment building, it is then Esperanza started to build a dream inside of her head because of the look on the nun’s face, unsatisfactory.

When society faces obstacles that are deemed a burden it is often forgotten that those same Experiences and tragedies often shape an individual's outlook on life and inspires personal growth from within. The Novel, The House on Mango Street reminds its readers that even in the worst of times there is still a lesson to be learned as seen through the eyes of a girl named, Esperanza. The coming of age story deals with dark underlying struggles blanketed in the innocent viewpoint of a child forced to grow up frighteningly quick. The main protagonist, a young Chicano girl, reminds the audience of the importance of learning from past experience in order to form an identity entirely based on the individuals own volition. Sandra Cisneros, The author of House on Mango Street, uses Esperanza's struggles caused by her race,gender, and economic status to instill the theme of identity.

Esperanza has lived her entire life moving from place to place, from bad neighborhood to bad neighborhood. Her past dwellings were old and rickety and the house on Mango Street was no different. “Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in” (4). She was surrounded by people with tragic lives, trapped in poverty and abusive relationships, and saw how much they suffered every day. Her friends dealt with abusive males in their households and they were bound in fear. “But Sally doesn't tell about that time he hit her with his hands just like a dog” (92). Esperanza witnessed these things and decided to let them fuel her motivation to leave Mango Street. She wants to be an independent person owned by no one. Her rage gives her the determinations to escape.

Have you ever felt like a minority? Sandra Cisneros writes about a young girl, Esperanza, going through a hard time within our America history. In “The House on Mango Street,” Esperanza displays a young, wishful girl, in a time where she is ridiculed by society, facing many hardships throughout her life, and struggling with self-identity

In Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s world influences her life for the better. Esperanza is living in poverty and watching all the mistakes people are making, her environment allows her to learn from the mistakes people around her are making. Sally, a girl living in her neighborhood, gets married like they expected, “Young and not ready” (Cisnero 14). Esperanza has seen someone get married too young before her eyes and now she will understand not to make the same mistake as Sally did. Esperanza living in this community allows her to understand what living at the bottom of the world is like, Esperanza becomes motivated wanting, “A house all my own” (Cisnero 15). Esperanza wants something better in life than living on