The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

All the people on Mango Street were struggling to get by, but they seemed satisfied with just making it. Esperanza was not. There were characters like Esperanza’s mother who was a “smart cookie,” and could’ve been anything, but she let shame get the best of her and dropped out of school. There was also Rafaela who got married before the 8th grade just so she could move into her own house, but her husband never let her leave the house afterward. He never let her see her friends, and the highlight of her week was getting coconut or papaya juice from someone who would send it up in a paper bag attached to a clothespin since she couldn’t leave the house. Lastly, there was the time when she was left stranded by the tilt-a- whirl waiting for a friend that never came back and got molested by a group of boys. The only witnesses were the red clown statues that seemed to be laughing at her. Nevertheless, she let none of this stopped her from going forward and perusing her dream. She still seemed to be struggling with a sense of belonging, but maybe that’s because she didn’t.

The neighborhood is not exactly a pretty place as Esperanza describes it. She says, “here there is too much sadness and not enough sky. Butterflies too are few and so are flowers and most things that are beautiful” (39). In the one year of Esperanza’s life that this book covers, she is raped, abused, and sees the death of the only person who would listen to her poetry- “Her name was Aunt Lupe and she was beautiful like [her] mother” (70). Her discontent with the neighborhood surrounding the house on Mango Street and the rough times that she experienced caused her to want to move away from

Imagine feeling like you don’t belong and never will, or that the odds of your success is a slim chance to none. The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros, leads us into a world of poverty, broken dreams, and slithers of hope. The House on Mango Street follows the life of a young girl by the name of Esperanza Cordero, who occupies her childhood in an indigent Latino neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. The books expresses her dire need to have a place where she can call home, and escape the harsh reality of her expected life. Though, her life on Mango Street is bearable with help of her little sister Nenny, her two best friends Rachel and Lucy, and her other friend Sally. On her journey to adulthood, Sandra Cisneros will show how Esperanza assimilates into a mature young lady, who truly find her identity, and develops emotionally as well as physically.

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.

In “The House on Mango Street”, the young daughter desires to leave her neighborhood as a way to escape her Mexican-American culture. One of the cultures which are most powerful in this story is the Hispanic culture that Esperanza and all of her neighbors emerge from. Her Hispanic culture has such a powerful influence on her

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

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 House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, is a novel about a young girl growing up in the Latino area of Chicago. It is highly admired and is taught in a plethora of grade schools and universities. The House on Mango Street expresses the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is full of harsh realities and jarring beauty. Esperanza doesn’t want to belong- not to her run-down neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her. Esperanza’s story is of a young girl coming into her power, and inventing what she will become for herself. While Esperanza and the other women have many differences, as in the way she is fortunate to avoid the pitfalls of her environment and others are not, there are just as many

Often in literature, authors create plot by writing about characters maturing throughout the story. One work that explores childhood to adulthood is The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In this novella, Esperanza Cordero is a young girl who lives in a poverty stricken area in Chicago. During the story, Esperanza grows up from being an adolescent to a young adult. In the novella, the theme is that losing innocence brings about maturity. Cisneros expresses Esperanza growing up by juxtaposing vignettes. Tone is also used to enhance the change in Esperanza’s thoughts while maturing. Both the juxtaposition of vignettes and tone support the theme that the loss of innocence and the gaining of

     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

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a coming of age novel of a young Mexican-American girl developing in a working class Chicago neighborhood. The author is much like the main character Esperanza in many different ways. One being that Cisneros was also a Mexican-American girl growing up in a Chicago working class neighborhood. Esperanza is a foil of Cisneros’ beliefs and opinions of her Mexican culture and heritage. While Esperanza is embarrassed of being a Mexican-American around white Americans, Cisneros is proud to be a Mexican-American girl. In Sara Rimer’s article, “San Antonio Journal; Novelist’s Purple

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.

Sandra Cisneros’, “The House on Mango Street” focuses on the narration of Esperanza, a young adolescent growing up in Chicago. Throughout the novel, Esperanza strives to develop her own sense of identity, while searching for the means out of her poverty-stricken neighborhood. With the help of her friends and family, Esperanza discovers how the world works, and what she needs to do in order to successfully better herself. The novel features several concepts of gender and sexuality studies including that of class structures, red-lining, gender, sexuality, intersectionality, and beauty. Those listed are simply a few more prominent features, as each character Esperanza introduces displays many more concepts within each scene. The concept of gender is portrayed widely throughout the novel and creates a foundation for the expectations the girls are about to face as they grow. Intersectionality interplays within the daily lives of each girl, and is seen within every page of the novel. Finally, beauty standards play an important role in the transition from adolescent to young adult each girl faces. Together, gender, intersectionality, and beauty standards, make up the novel, as it portrays the importance of each of these three core concepts of gender, women and sexuality studies.

The novel “The House on Mango Street” is written by Sandra Cineros. It deals with family, neighbourhood and dreams of a young Mexican girl, Esperanza Cordero growing up in Chicago. The novel begins when the Corderos move into a new house on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. The fact that it is the first house they have ever owned, make them proud. But when Esperanza sees it, she is disappointed by the red, dilapidated house. It is not the one their

Cisneros' The House on Mango Street is a novel about the importance of not forgetting where you come from. Esperanza, a young Latino girl and the story's main character, wants to