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The House On Mango Street Character Analysis

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Facing Maturity Maturity is reaching to the point where one asks themselves who they are as a person and who they want to be. It’s when one starts searching for the answers. Maturity is when one becomes their own best friend, their own priority. It’s when one knows what is and who is good for themselves and to protect them. In the novel The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros the narrator, Esperanza, reveals her story about how she tries to find her true self. As she enters womanhood, she develops her identity and changes drastically as she gets a better understanding of her sexuality, heritage, and her as a person. In Cisneros’ House on Mango Street, Esperanza evolves from an insecure girl to a mature young lady as she becomes …show more content…

When Esperanza wears the shoes, she gets comments from boys and men for the first time of her life, which shows her pleasure of wanting people to notice her. Overall, Esperanza changes from being self-conscious to confident.
Esperanza also evolves as she becomes aware of her responsibilities. In the beginning of the story, Esperanza was only concerned with her own desires. This is displayed in the vignette “The House on Mango Street” when she wishes for a “real house that would be [theirs]...[their] house would have running water...real stairs...like the houses on TV…[their] house would be white...a great big yard…” (4) This portrays the American Dream. The way Esperanza describes the house she dreams of having one day, displays her insecurity at being poor since she has never lived in a house where there was running water or more than one bathroom. Moreover, dreaming of this house shows how desperate she is to escape her neighborhood because she does not want to be identified with, in her eyes, an ugly house. Esperanza is so invested in having a beautiful house instead of an ugly house, that she isn’t thinking about anyone but herself. However, Esperanza’s maturity becomes evident when she starts to accept the responsibilities of a woman. For instance, in the vignette “Mango says Goodbye Sometimes” she says that “[she] [has] gone away to come back.

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