Hopeful In The House On Mango Street

Esperanza’s house on Mango Street is not the house she dreamed on when she lived on Loomis Street, not the kind of house her parent’s talked about, not the house she wanted. Her house on Mango Street is a small, red house with even smaller stairs leading to the door. The brick are falling out of place and to get inside, one must shove the door, swollen like Esperanza’s feet in later vignettes, open. Once inside, where you are never very far from someone else, there are small hallway stairs that lead to the only one shared bedroom and bathroom. This house is just, “For the time being,”[5] Esperanza claims, for this is nothing like the house she longs for. Esperanza does not like her current living conditions, saying she wants, “A real house. One I can point to. But this isn’t

1. I think they find it necessary to move so often because it has been a dream for the family of six to have a piece of property like the houses shown on TV. The story begins when the family buys a new house on Mango Street. This new house is the first the family has owned and does not fulfill their dream. The house is simply not big enough for the family.

The House on Mango Street is set in a poor, primarily Hispanic neighborhood. Author Sandra Cisneros creates an atypical, yet easily digestible world for the reader to experience while learning about Esperanza’s childhood. The culture of her environment influences Esperanza’s development as she becomes a young woman, and contributes to the book’s driving theme of self-empowerment.

Esperanza and her mother made the choice to leave Mexico and go to California to work, and escape Tio Luis, which I believe to be a good decision. Before going, Esperanza was spoiled, rich, and quite full of herself, living in a high social class family, and in general thought of herself better than others. At first, she was against leaving everything she knew and loved, but in the end, found herself liking California. Esperanza made new friends, in particular, Isabel, who taught her many things, even though she was younger.

House on Mango Street analysis essay: Hopes and Dreams In the House on Mango Street, a novel by Sandra Cisneros, she suggests the notion that hopes and dreams can be obtained even when people are at the bottom of the totem pole as seen in Esperanza’s desire to live in a better place and find friends. One way that Sandra Cisneros suggests this theme is when Esperanza feels ashamed of her current house and knows “she has to have a real house. One she can point to and feel proud of (Cisneros 5) Another example is when Esperanza and the nun are talking and the nun asks where Esperanza lives and she is forced to “point to the the third floor, with the paint peeling”

As a child, Esperanza wants only escape from mango Street. Her dream of independents and "self-definition" also means leaving her family behind without any responsibilities to her family. Throughout the book, her has also faced some situation where is feels ashamed to be part of the Mango Street community and in some instances refuses to admit she has anything to do with mango street. At the beginning of the book near the earlier chapters, Esperanza feels very insecure about herself in general along with the house that she lives in. As mentioned before, she doesn’t want to discuss her name nor where she lives.

Esperanza and her family are always moving because they do not have much money, but they finally moved into a house on Mango Street where they “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” (703). Although it sounded like a nice place, when a nun from her school saw where Esperanza lived, she said, “You live there?” (703). That made Esperanza feel like nothing and made her realize she needs a real house, one that is really nice. Esperanza wants to change her life and make the best of what she has.

Esperanza is often humiliated not only by where she lives, but also by her physical appearance, hence causing a restriction in her climb to a higher social class. Esperanza is frequently ashamed of her family’s broken-down house in an urban, poor

“In the meantime they’ll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in (Cisneros 13).” This quote is a significant part of the story because it shows how Esperanza truly feels about herself and her family. She thinks that because she is poor and lives and a bad neighborhood people move away from her family. Esperanza doesn’t think very much of her or her family at all. She thinks that it is because of their race that people do not want to be near them.

Instead it can be a way in which the person can develop in the future. Within Esperanza’s family, members often repeat the pattern of falling short of success, never making it out on their own and being able to support themselves. A constant reminder of this lifestyle lays in Esperanza’s name, as it is shared between her, and her great grandmother. In the HOMS, the grandmother is described as a wild horse of a woman, until she gets married and loses her freedom. Esperanza notes,” I have inherited her name but I will not inherit her place in the window,”(11).

Esperanza’s Odyssey Esperanza ’s journey of self-identification is apparent in the novel “House on Mango Street”. Her hopes of leaving the barrio were clearly shown in different vignettes: “House on Mango Street”, “Bums in the attic”, “Beautiful and Cruel”, and so on. Her process of self-identification will entail her realizing that she is growing more mature, figuring out her sexuality, and understanding her culture as a Latina.

“Isabel, I will tell you about how I used to live. About parties and private school and the beautiful doll my papa bought me, if you will teach me how to pin diapers, how to wash, and…”(p120). This is significant because it proves that Esperanza will do anything to get that job. She doesn’t want to work, but in order to achieve her goals, she has to. And she is willing to do that for her family.

Further into the novel, Esperanza travels to America. This is new for Esperanza and she is confused on the new lifestyle that she is merging into. She

The women that surround her are silent, and many of them cannot leave the house. She watches girls have children and marry just to escape their home because that is the only thing they know in life. Esperanza already knows she wants to be more than what is expected of her as a poor, Latina girl, and will fight the expectations placed on her in the subtlest of ways. “I have begun my own quiet war. Simple.

The reaction to this small house affects her to dream of living in a house of her own (Cisneros 4). Esperanza isn’t all that wealthy; this is evident when they can’t afford lunch meats so she makes a rice Maggard 3 sandwich (Cisneros 44). Overall Esperanza learns to cope with her living situation just talking to people and she also works really hard in school and at home and eventually moves away. These three characters have proved to all be very unique and different.