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Examples Of Identity In The House On Mango Street

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The Identity of Esperanza
The novella, “The House On Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, shows how Esperanza has multiple struggles during her childhood while living on Mango Street. Esperanza goes through her phases that end up turning her into a strong, brave women. Her family and herself struggle through poverty throughout the novella. Esperanza herself goes through problems as she grows up. She may be happy that she is growing up and maturing, but doesn't expect that while becoming a woman she gets treated differently. While getting a taste of the real world Esperanza adjusts with it and matures to the women she wanted to be. As an independent, strong women, Esperanza is greatly being shaped by being Latina because she is maturing
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Another example would be the vignette, “First Job” . Esperanza felt comfortable around her boos, untill he makes it awkward. “He said it was his birthday and he wanted a birthday kiss from me”(55). This vignette she earned her first job and she thought it was easy but a little tiring. She did like it until she got kissed by her boss. She had really matured at this point in the novella because she has gotten her first job. For example in vignette, “Red Clowns”, a man is sexually assaulting her. She thinks to herself “only his dirty fingernails against my skin, only his sour smell again”(100). The man is forcing himself on her and she felt awkward and disgusted. She has started realizing that this is how she is gonna be treated, now that she's a women. Finally in the vignette “Chanclas” Esperanza is having dancing and everyone is watching her and then she realizes, “until I forgot that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white…”(47). Poverty has really affected her because her shoes really gave her less self confidence than she already had. Even though nobody looked at her shoes, only at her dancing she was still embarrassed to not have nice shoes. All of these experiences are helping Esperanza turn into a mature, independent

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