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The House On Mango Street Research Paper

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Identity Crisis When one is going through life, they will try to find who they are. This can be influenced by people around them and what they do, but they will find themselves eventually. Sandra Cisneros shows this through Esperanza in her novella The House on Mango Street. Esperanza through this aging and learning from her experiences. She very slowly, but very normally learning who she is. Esperanza’s negative view of herself slowly changes as she begins to focus on her larger community and her place within it. Through this, Cisneros shows that knowing and accepting where one comes from is an important part of growing up and determining one's identity. Esperanza gets stunted from growing because of the people she’s around. Everybody that’s around her are either much younger or much older. This is shown by Esperanza using phrases like “this kid” in the vignette “Our Good Day” to describe people around her (Cisneros 14). Having nothing but kids around someone is only going to stop them from growing. Having someone that is ones age can help see what pace that person needs to be at in order to keep up. This however, is not the case with Esperanza. The only people who she is able to look up to are the adults in the area. This makes her want to grow up even faster then what she has. There fore she crams things into …show more content…

Where one lives can have an effect on the brain of a growing person. Cisneros writes in the vignette ‘The House On Mango Street’ “and window so small you’d think they were holding their breath” (4). The window is Esperanza, and she is trying to move forward, but can’t. This is like the window because it is holding its breath and not being able to expand fully.Where she lives could also effect on her, because of her schooling. Not having the best schooling could not have their minds flex fully and learn as much as they could at a higher up school. Having a well rounded community

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