What a Home Really is in The House on Mango Street “Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and …show more content…
“I am an ugly daughter,” she says. “I am the one nobody comes for” (109). She feels she can relate to the four skinny trees outside her window. “Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine” (93). Just as the trees survive under a harsh environment, Esperanza finds difficulty in accepting the neighborhood in which she lives. She is very self-conscious about her name, whose mispronunciation by teachers and peers at school sounds ugly to her ears. She struggles with jealousy of her younger sister Nenny and cynically says that she “has pretty eyes and it’s easy to talk…if you are pretty” (109). Ashamed of most everything she identifies with, Esperanza is maturing with a very low perception of herself. She is not content with her home and surroundings, and cannot be until she is happy with her own character. 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
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.
In life, we are often deeply influenced by the people who surround us. Consider the age-old adage “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”; this familiar saying reminds us that, in life, we gravitate toward people who appeal to us, and those people can have a great impact on who we are and the choices we make. In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza meets many women who play a role in her life. Some of the women impact her in negative ways, but others help her to see that she can make more of her life than what her Chicago neighborhood offers. Of all the women in Esperanza’s life, Esperanza is most influenced by her mother and Alicia because they teach her to rely on herself in order to escape Mango Street.
The beginning of this book introduces Ezperanza along with a collection of other characters who influence Ezperanza She exlores cultural backrounds and how they are affected by society through different experiences.. We learn that Ezperanza is ashamed of her poverty, where in many instances Ezperanza tries to hide her poor life style. Many representations of this are present throughout the stroy. For example, Ezperanza attempts to hide her unattractive shoes at a party in order to avoid others to believe that she cannot afford better quality shoes.
Esperanza is forever marked by the house and neighborhood she lives in. She wants to be like other kids who are allowed to eat their lunch at school instead of having to go home everyday. These students live father from the school than she does. Esperanza assumes these children live in better houses and neighborhoods. She is embarrassed by her house and angry that she must be identified by it. As said by Sister Superior, “I bet I can see your house from my window. Which one? Come here. Which one is your house?” The sister points to an ugly row of houses in the general direction of Esperanzas address.
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.
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
Esperanza is new to the neighborhood, and was never proud of her previous houses, but the negative intonation that the nun uses on her makes her feel like she is being judged, not on who she is, but what her family can afford. There is the place Esperanza now has to call home and the degrading presumption that the neighborhood already has causes her to accept that she can’t change her image without money and let her personality shine through. She seems to accept her label as poor in the story, “A Rice Sandwich”, where she believes the special, also known as rich, kids get to eat in the canteen and she wants to be part of that narrative, so she begs her mother for three days, to write her a note to allow her eat in the canteen. When she couldn’t endure her daughter’s nagging anymore, she complied. Thinking this would be enough affirmation, Esperanza went to school the next with the note and stood in the line with the other kids. She wasn’t recognized by the nun who checks the list, and has to face Sister Superior, who claims that she doesn’t live far enough to stay at school and asks Esperanza to show where her house is. “That one? She said, pointing to a row of ugly three -flats, the ones even the raggedy men are ashamed to go into. Yes, I nodded even though I knew that wasn’t my house,”(45). Esperanza was compared to the most raggedy men, and had to accept
Women’s Escape into Misery Women’s need for male support and their husband’s constant degradation of them was a recurring theme in the book House on Mango Street. Many of Esperanza’s stories were about women’s dreams of marrying, the perfect husband and having the perfect family and home. Sally, Rafaela, and Minerva are women who gave me the impression of [damsel’s in distress].CLICHÉ, it’s ok though. It’s relevant They wished for a man to sweep them of their feet and rescue them from their present misery. These characters are inspiring and strong but they are unable to escape the repression of the surrounding environment. *Cisneros presents a rigid world in which they lived in, and left them no other hope but to get married.
Esperanza was ashamed of the house she lived in, the clothes she wore, her appearance and even her name. Esperanza’s confidence was already extremely low. For instance, she was talking to a nun at her school about being able to eat lunch at school because she lived to far away to walk home and eat. The nun glared out the window and pointed at a rundown house and asked if Esperanza lived there. Even though she did not live there, Esperanza replied, “Yes.” After the nun made this rude remark, Esperanza cried because she was disappointed that the nun thought it was her house. She let the nun get the best of her. It is crucial to keep a positive attitude and try your hardest to make the best of your situation, as it will enable you to live a happier life and be more successful in what you do. Although at times Esperanza was humiliated and embarrassed, such as when Tito and Sally started to laugh at her when she tried to stop them from kissing Sally, she didn’t let these situations keep her down. Esperanza was sad that one of her good friends would do such a thing to her, when she was only trying to protect her, but continued to persevere and made the best of the
I never had a choice. They decided it all for me and the next thing you know, we
The story; themes; and implications for teaching from the House on Mango Street come from showing how today’s society has low expectations for those in the inner city. This book can be used to show what inner life is like and how these people are looked at and treated by others in society. Using this book in the classroom can be beneficial because many people have negative preconceptions of what life is really like as a minority. I know that I think of inner city schools and the students that attend them as underprivileged and don’t hold them to the same standards as I do others from smaller more suburban towns. Going to Milwaukee this semester has been a culture shock and I think that reading this book
Many gender roles and themes are observed, throughout the course of this story, in particular, the single mother role. Women are also contrasted with the men as their lives are constrained inside of the home while the men are permitted to enjoy life outside. Divisions in gender are revealed from the very beginning of the book. For example, in “Boys & Girls,” Esperanza communicates the contrast between herself and her brothers, Kiki and Carlos as she states, “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls” (Cisneros 8). Esperanza can only interact with her sister, Nenny, but Nenny is "too young to be [her] friend" (Cisneros 8). Esperanza is lonely and dreams of a true friend. She feels that she is like "a red balloon, a balloon that is tied to an anchor" (Cisneros 9). Esperanza is apprehensive that she will be trapped on Mango Street, like all the other women. This particular situation demonstrates the first indication of gender issues in her community.
Growing-up in a predominately Mexican/Mexican-American community as a first-generation girl, like I did, is no walk in the park. Not only was I to uphold my parent’s traditional Mexican values such as: learning to cook and keep to a household, as well as a marriage, but also to uphold my new American values of independence and success measured in money as well as in property. At school I was taught to forget my first language, Spanish, and speak only in English, reminding me that: “You don’t want to speak with an accent.” At home I was reminded that Spanish, was and still is my first language and to leave English for school use only, reminding me that: “We can’t understand you in English.” Through this tug-of-war, between both cultures expectations of who I was to be/become, there was a desperate need to find my own identity, away from either culture. Sandra Cisneros’, The House on Mango Street, documents the need and struggle to find one’s own identity, through the narrator Esperanza’s experiences growing-up in a predominately Latino community in Chicago. Throughout the book Esperanza tries to understand the many different factors that influence her life and identity: in particular ethnicity and gender. Although, Esperanza suggest that she doesn’t want to be identified by either her Mexican identity or her sex; both of these factors play a major role in her struggle to find her own identity, by the way that they are intertwined in her own thoughts and in the descriptions of
She says she's not a part of mango street. She wants to leave mango and never return. Esperanza has a negative view of herself, but in the end she accepts that she is part of Mangos street. A nun went to Esperanza and made her feel about where she lives. She says the nun made her feel like nothing. Esperanza has a low self esteem because she is not confident in her surrounding. She states ¨Temporary, says papa, but i know how those things go.
In "My Name, "She looked out the window her whole life, they way so many women sit, with their sadness on an elbow". Abuse to Rafaela, again subtle because she does not go out, in fear of husband. Poverty on Loomis, Keeler and Paulina; poverty is a way of life. The impact is for all generations, the parents who cannot get out, the children that see it and the little ones who cannot know any better. The opportunities are limited in the barrio. Esperanza was embarrassed when she pointed to her house "there". "There?", as if there was no place for a girl to live. But survival is instinctive and there is a certain amount of barrio pride "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we are dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake." The victim of being called a "rice sandwich". Hurt by the sister superior as she points to a row of ugly houses reminding Esperanza of the sin of being poor.