Theme Of Social Issues In The House On Mango Street

In today’s world there are countless social problems. People are often treated as an inferior or as if they are less important for many different reasons. In The House on Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros addresses these problems. Throughout the story Cisneros does a thorough job explaining and showing how these issues affect the public. This novel is written through the eyes of a young girl, Esperanza, growing up in a poor neighborhood where the lifestyles of the lower class are revealed. Cisneros points out that, in today’s society, the expectation of women and their treatment, discrimination based on poverty, and discrimination because of a person’s ethnicity are the major

Hook: In the coming-of-age novel, House on Mango Street, the main character Esperanza narrates the story through her perspective of the situations she encounters as she grows older in her new neighborhood.

The House on Mango Street uses three vignettes to state that innocence shelters children from the extreme truth of the adult world. To begin, in “The First Job”, an older man unexpectedly forces himself on Esperanza: “I thought I would because he was so old and just as I was about to put my lips on his cheek, he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn’t let go” (Cisneros 55). Esperanza’s innocence allowed her to kiss an old man on the cheek for his birthday because she could not imagine anything inappropriate occurring. However, the man “grabs [her] face with both hands” and “doesn’t let go”. This violent action shatters the innocence that has hidden Esperanza from the adult truth. Next, Esperanza witnesses how Tito and the boys treat Sally in “The Monkey Garden”: “One of Tito’s friends said you can’t get the keys back unless you kiss us and Sally pretended to be mad at first but she said yes” (Cisneros 96). The adult game played angers Esperanza as the boys use Sally to their advantage and Sally “[pretends] to be mad” but still willingly complies. Esperanza, unlike Sally, sees the situation as wrong because of her innocence, but when she attempts to save Sally, the boys laugh at her. Embarrassed, Esperanza is exposed to an adult type of game and now feels confused from this break in her innocence. Finally, Esperanza completely loses her innocence after being sexually assaulted at the carnival: “You’re a liar. They all lied. All the books and

As a young girl, Esperanza is a young girl who looks at life from experience of living in poverty, where many do not question their experience. She is a shy, but very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home, with beautiful flowers and a room for everyone. When she moves to the house of Mango Street, reality is so different than the dream. In this story, hope (Esperanza) sustains tragedy. The house she dreamed of was another on. It was one of her own. One where she did not have to share a bedroom with everyone. That included her mother, father and two siblings. The run down tiny house has "bricks crumbling in places". The one she dreamed of had a great big yard, trees and 'grass growing without a fence'. She did not want to abandon

Marin said that “she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house faraway.” (Cisneros,26-27) This mean she will change her life with man not her own. In this story’s background society is woman should work in a house and man should go outside and make money so this is like man should protect woman. Also, another character that similar with Marin is Rafaela. She is beautiful so her husband didn’t let her go outside of her house. Then, she never left outside and she just look outside through the window. This can be said that women rely on men and leave all responsibilities for men. In the past, this thought, same as them is very normal but as time passes, most people agree for gender equality. Then, literally, gender is being equal. But, Esperanza thought that woman should live in recognition of these thoughts and consider them after she met normal woman in that

In life many people set goals for themselves. For some people it maybe a goal such as obtaining a high test grade and for others it maybe to one day own a race car. Everybody has a different outlook on life and everyone has different goals in which they one day hope to achieve. The people who achieve their goals are those who are motivated and determined to do so. When these goals are achieved it is then when you are a hero to yourself.

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.

The most important Theme in The House on Mango Street is identity. Identity is a very

“I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I’m me. One day I’ll jump out of my skin. I’ll shake the sky like a hundred violins” (60). In the story “The House on Mango Street”, the author Sandra Cisneros uses sentences full of imagery, metaphors, and word games, to show how self definition is a result of the people and places surrounding you. This is represented throughout the book when Esperanza wants to change her name, living in a male dominated society, and when she wishes for a new home.

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

Bill Gates once stated, “Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.” As discrimination for a race builds, the minority race develops feelings of marginalization which in turn makes it tough for these minorities to preserve through society’s view of them because they cannot control what others assume about them, that they are inferior and that they are dangerous. Gates points out that there are layers and layers of discrimination and that is the continuation of racial thoughts in society and discrimination toward the unhealthy. Sandra Cisneros also portray this concept in her novella The House on Mango Street through Esperanza’s struggles as an unwealthy Latina in a society filled with racial beliefs. People living in poverty and those of the minority race in a certain area tend to be discriminated which alienates them and causes them to develop feelings of shame toward their race and living situation.

In The House on Mango Street, the vignette “The Family of Little Feet” first seems like a random story, and is often disregarded, overlooked, and labeled “insignificant” because the story is oriented around three pairs of high-heeled shoes that arealmost immediately thrown away. As a result, seems like an arbitrary story that isn’t connected with the other vignettes. However, after careful reading, the story is relevant to the story since the shoes are a symbol that helps us further understand the characters and develops a theme.

"My Grandparents, My Parents and Me." My Grandparents My Parents, Mis Abuelos Mis Padres, Frida Kahlo, C0160. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 May

For decades, the social stereotype of women hindering their rights to stay home and act as the caretaker has been widely accepted in various cultures and civilizations. Today, many individuals fight to renew women’s rights and dissolve this stereotype, yet it is still prevalent amongst society. This issue is so relevant that many literary works have incorporated the idea into their theme. Throughout Sandra Cisneros’ novel The House on Mango Street, the idea of a woman by the window is repeatedly mentioned and symbolizes the belief that women cannot reach their full potential and are left watching life’s possibilities pass them by.

The novel, Pride and Prejudice, though written over 200 years ago, is the classic example of a coming of age romantic story. Although its main plot is based around the young woman, Elizabeth Bennet, falling in love with the proud Fitzwilliam Darcy, it is important to mention that there are other subplots and major themes, which are also relevant and equally important. One of the overarching themes of Pride and Prejudice is class distinction and the segregation of society. The types of social class divisions Jane Austen writes can still be found in today’s society.