The House On Mango Street Growth Essay

By the end of the story, Esperanza accepted the fact that she lived on Mango Street even though she never felt she belonged. She learned that even though she may leave Mango Street, Mango street would never leave her. In the chapter titled, The Three Sisters, who happened to be fortune tellers, they told her that she would one day get her big house and a better

“The House on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom. But even so, it's not the house we'd thought we'd get… The water pipes broke and the landlord wouldn't fix them because the house was too old. We had to leave fast. We were using the washroom next door and carrying water over in empty milk gallons.” ( chapter 1, page 4.) For Esperanza, the idea of having a house of her own becomes sort of an obsession. The image of the house becomes a symbol for various ideas. Esperanza is so ashamed of where she lives. She also, denies that she lived in Mango Street. Esperanza also stated that is she had the chance she would erase the years that she lived in it. Cathy who was Esperanza's friends until Tuesday was so ashamed of where Esperanza lived. Cathy felt bad for the house that Esperanza called her home. “Where do you live? She asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there?” ( chapter 1, page 5.)

She said it was small and the bricks were crumbling. And she didn’t want to be there. Now that Mango Street is her home she tries to understand it more, but she still isn't happy living there. Another problem Esperanza faces is finding herself.

With all of the bad things going on around Esperanza, she was very optimistic and made the best of everything she could. For example, in chapter one, Esperanza explain how she and her family had always grown up poor and that they always had dreams of one day owning a big beautiful house like the ones that they saw on television. One with a back yard and a basement. When Esperanza's family was forced to move her parents had purchased the first house that they could afford so they wouldn't have to continue paying rent. The house was nothing like what they had spoke of or dreamt about. But Esperanza states, "I then knew I had to have a house. One I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama said. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go.." Within this paragraph it shows that Esperanza isn't exactly happy about where she is living but she is going to make the best of it and do what she has to do to get out of there and have a house of her own. One that she can point to.

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

Esperanza wishes to be grown so she can be free from Mango Street, but she is faced with a sense of powerlessness and no role models to show her to be powerful. Esperanza is surrounded by women who have submitted to their fate instead of standing up for themselves, except for Alicia. Esperanza, instead of following every woman who has submitted to their powerlessness, has chosen a role model who is showing her to be powerful. After Esperanza is raped, the peak of her powerlessness, she is speaking with Alicia, “No, this isn’t my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I’ve lived here...No, Alicia says. Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you’ll come back too. Not me. Not until somebody makes it better. Who’s going to do it? Not the mayor” (Cisneros 106). Alicia is telling Esperanza that no matter how hard she tries, Mango Street will always be a part of her past, and she will come back someday. But at the same time, she’s hinting to Esperanza that she is strong enough to come back and change Mango Street for the better. Because who else is going to do it? Esperanza understands Alicia’s message to her and reflects upon what she wishes her future to be like, “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away...They will not know I have gone away to

Throughout the course of Mango Street, Esperanza’s relationship towards her house change. As time passes her feelings about the house itself change and the emotional impact of the house of her changes as well. Esperanza’s house on Mango Street symbolizes her Mexican culture. For so long she has wanted to leave it. She envisions a different type of life than what she is used to - moving from house to house. “this house is going to be different / my life is going to be different”. One can look at all the things she envisions - the "trappings of the good life" such as the running water, the garden etc. as symbols for the new life.

Esperanza’s insecurity about where she lives and how she lives is the conflict of the story. A tradition her father, Nenny, and herself has is going to the houses on the hills, she believes she looks like the hungry asking for food so she no longer goes. Esperanza is so ashamed of her house that when someone ask which house she lives in she denies living in those flats. She becomes aware of how poor her family is when she must go to work to help pay for private school, this encourages her to get out of the flats. Esperanza sets out to be able to support herself on her own and buy the house she has been dreaming of since she was little.

Eventually, Esperanza decides she does not need to set herself apart from the others in her

There are many ways that a person could use something to help them escape from a certain situation, or scenario, but the way that Esperanza escapes from Mango Street is through her writing. As she says on page 110, “I put it down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much” (Cisneros 110). Through this quote, we see Esperanza conveying that, now that she has left, she is able to forget about Mango Street through her writing and that, by writing about it, she is able to forget her past and move on. Writing about the pain that a location or object may hold for someone is a common coping mechanism used by many to let go of the past. But another reason that Esperanza may write about Mango Street is to help her relieve her fear of potentially having to go back to the place she once called home. “You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are” (Cisneros 105). In this passage, the three sisters are reminding Esperanza that she will “always be Mango Street” and that she must one day come back for those who can’t leave. Esperanza reacts with opposition to this

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.

While sitting on Edna Ruthie’s steps Alicia was another person that told Esperanza that she is Mango Street and weather she likes it or not Esperanza will have to come back to her home and help the people that can not be helped. Alicia points out that nobody is going to come and help Mango Street be a better place to live as she says, “Who’s going to do it? The mayor?” (107). Esperanza is ashamed of living on Mango Street and is jealous of Alicia that can go back to her home, Guadalajara, some day when she is ready. Esperanza has nowhere to go except 4006 Mango Street where she feels she doesn’t belong or a new house that she can’t have until an adult. Alicia does help Esperanza realize that no matter what happens to Esperanza when she grows

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

The House on Mango Street is a collection of vignettes written by Sandra Cisneros that is about a young Mexican-American girl named Esperanza, and the struggles of her life as she transitions from childhood into adulthood. Esperanza wants to find her true identity, but the conflicts and struggles that she faces throughout the story. Her town is a part of her adventure to find her self identity. She picks herself up, learning and figuring herself out throughout the novel. The author uses symbolism throughout the vignettes to convey the deeper meaning of conflicts developed in the novel, to show the difficulties of growing into adulthood.

At the beginning of the novel, Esperanza is an naive eleven year old girl who at first did not comprehend why her family would move constantly. Furthermore, she is the older sibling of five kids, and she was expected to take all the responsibility. Moreover, Esperanza mentions that her parents would always told her “one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each