The 1984 novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and the 2002 film Whale Rider by Niki Caro shed light on the stereotypical roles females are expected to fulfill in many different cultures. Esperanza comes from an immigrant Mexican family that resides in Chicago and is the typical minority family. Paikea, on the other hand, comes from a long line of Maori people and lives in Whangara, a small village in New Zealand. Even though the girls are separated by thousands of miles, they both are very similar and strive to be leaders in their communities, despite the discrimination they face for being young females.
The role of women plays a huge part in both The House on Mango Street and Whale Rider. Esperanza comes from a culture where
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She moves around frequently and lives in a rather rubbish neighborhood occupied by many other minority families. But despite how it may look to outsiders, Esperanza says it is a very safe neighborhood. While living on Mango Street, Esperanza recalls multiple times people in her neighborhood have fulfilled the stereotypical Mexican role, such as abuse by husbands, stealing cars, getting married early, and having many children. Even though Esperanza is surrounded by negative influences, she does not fall into the cycle that most women in her culture do, and instead decides to make something of her life, then come back and help the others do the same. Like Esperanza, Paikea comes from a very narrow-minded culture. Paikea is a Maori descendant and lives in a small village on the coast of New Zealand. Her grandfather is the chief, and Paikea’s twin brother was supposed to be the chief after her father, but unfortunately, he died when he was born. This left Paikea feeling rejected and unwanted by many people, simply because she was not “born a boy” (Whale Rider, 2002) for years. She was not allowed to be the chief because she was a girl, even though it was clear she was meant to be the next chief. Paikea’s grandfather refuses to believe it is the truth and expects Paikea to do what the rest of the Maori women do: take care of the men, cook, clean, and have children. But, Paikea’s rebellious actions to not do what she was
Throughout The House on Mango Street Esperanza learns to resist the gender norms that are deeply imbedded in her community. The majority of the other female characters in the novel have internalized the male viewpoint and they believe that it is their husbands or fathers responsibility to care for them and make any crucial decisions for them. However, despite the influence of other female characters that are “immasculated”, according to Judith Fetterley, Esperanza’s experiences lead her to become a “resisting reader” in Fettereley’s terminology because she does not want to become like the women that she observes, stuck under a man’s authority. She desires to leave Mango Street and have a “home of her own” so that she will never be forced
Our families are the people we grew up around, whether they are our blood relatives or not. They are the people that make you who you are, though they might not always be around. In the story “House on Mango Street, Esperanza's family plays a huge role in shaping her identity. Throughout the story we are shown how her family, community, culture, and gender impacted her character and actions. In her community, there are Hispanic minorities and people who have lived more unfortunate lives. In fact, her family is a part of this group. Not only are people prejudiced against because of their culture, but the women face sexism from both outsiders and people in their community. Although our identities are influenced by a multitude of factors, the family we are surrounded by in our adolescence end up shaping our identities the most.
The theme of a patriarchal society where beauty is a weakness and having too much of it only means darkness is very prominent in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Esperanza, the protagonist of the numerous vignettes, highlights how this affects the young women on Mango Street.
Esperanza, a strong- willed girl who dreams big despite her surroundings and restrictions, is the main character in The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza represents the females of her poor and impoverished neighborhood who wish to change and better themselves. She desires both sexuality and autonomy of marriage, hoping to break the typical life cycle of woman in her family and neighborhood. Throughout the novel, she goes through many different changes in search of identity and maturity, seeking self-reliance and interdependence, through insecure ideas such as owning her own house, instead of seeking comfort and in one’s self. Esperanza matures as she begins to see the difference. She evolves from an insecure girl to a
It is true that in many of the stories in The House on Mango Street there is a man holding back a woman from being free. Esperanza is often feels sympathy for these women. These stories are used to show us how trapped behind her culture and expectations Esperanza feels. The helplessness Esperanza sees mirrors her own feelings of weakness. While I do believe many of the stories Cisneros gives us depict a rather stereotypical view of the Mexican American household, I also believe it is a tool used to reflect her main character’s struggle to break
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.
In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros presents a series of vignettes that involve a young girl, named Esperanza, growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero is searching for a release from the low expectations and restrictions that Latino society often imposes on its young women. Cisneros draws on her own background to supply the reader with accurate views of Latino society today. In particular, Cisneros provides the chapters “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and Cruel” to portray Esperanza’s stages of growth from a questioning and curious girl to an independent woman. Altogether, “Boys and Girls” is not like “Beautiful and Cruel” because Cisneros reveals two different maturity levels in Esperanza;
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.
In the novel, “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, the main character Esperanza has many positive influences on her life. Hardships do not define one’s life either in a mental or physical capacity. Throughout the novel, Esperanza’s grandmother, Marin, and Rosa Vargas enable her to overcome the hardships of becoming a woman.
The House on Mango Street is a bildungsroman about a young Latina girl, named Esperanza Cordero, who has various struggles while she is searching to determine who she is and where she belongs in this world. The author, Sandra Cisneros, addresses several themes in the book of which three are significant; language barrier, self discovery, and gender roles.
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.
In The House on Mango Street, we see how the youth struggled with the discrimination being pushed on them by Whites. Esperanza describes how they lived in such a poverty-stricken area of the city, and did not interact with the Whites. She talks about how the Whites saw Mexicans as bad people who committed crimes. Esperanza shows how personal identity for Mexicans was made
In Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses metaphors to characterize the people and conditions on Mango Street. In Mango Street, poverty and gender inequality frequently hinder women from escaping Mango Street and the abusiveness of their households. Furthermore, Mango Street’s women often find themselves trapped in the expectations of marriage and subservience because society reduces their value to the basis of their beauty. Esperanza realizes the corruption of gender expectations unlike the other women of Mango Street however. Therefore, she refuses to subject herself to social standards and she decides to remain independent instead. Through metaphors, Cisneros characterizes the social standards of marriage that burden the women on Mango Street and she characterizes Esperanza’s determination to escape her circumstances.
In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, a little girl from a Latino heritage is given birth to. Not literally, but in the sense of characterization. Esperanza is a fictional character made up by Cisneros to bring about sensitive, alert, and rich literature. She is the protagonist in the novel and is used to depict a female’s life growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Cisneros creates the illusion that Esperanza is a real human being to communicate the struggles of growing up as a Latina immigrant in a modern world, by giving her a name, elaborating her thoughts and feelings, and illustrating her growth as a person through major events.
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a perfect example of feminist theory in literature in the twenty’s century. In “The House on Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros pictures the lives on Mango Street. She shows us how differences between the roles of men and women in Esperanza’s life, and Latino women’s lives are influenced by the Spanish culture. She also lets