“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.
According to the Census Bureau statistic, did you know that the dropout rate for Latinas ages 16 to 24 is 30 percent, compared with 12.9 percent for blacks and 8.2 percent for whites? The culture in the novel that we read believed that women need to get married and stay at home rather than be in school and become something greater than a housekeeper or just a stay-at-home mom. This essay will be talking about how our main character Esperanza has changed or evolved by the usage of words in the novel and Esperanza’s actions. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza starts out as a weak person who only knows what the community says or teaches, and progresses as life moves on and becomes a much stronger individual, which is shown
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.
A common lifelong struggle of humanity is finding oneself as well as one’s place in society. People struggle to define their identities on a global, local and personal level. For instance, a Mexican family is trying to create a living in America, while struggling for acceptance. As a member of the family, a young girl questions the true meaning of home. As she grows, she dreams of what the perfect home will be and also learns how to fight for her rights as a Chicana woman.
Throughout The House on Mango Street, characters struggle to actualize their dreams of a meaningful life. Author Sandra Cisneros illustrates this theme through her inclusion of windows as a symbol for a longing of another life. In the novel The House on Mango Street, windows represent the book and it’s theme of struggling for satisfaction in life by acting both as a border to another life and a translucent gateway to the character’s hopes. Windows act as a border to the life the characters long for but are incapable of achieving. Esperanza tells her great-grandmother’s story in which she is whisked away from her previously eventful life only to “[look] out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow” because “she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be” (Cisneros 11).
In the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, most of the women are all unhappy and want to change their lives. On page 11, it states after Esperanza’s grandmother got married, “ She looked out the window her whole life.” This shows that after she had gotten married, she was unhappy with how her life was. This also shows that she loved her life much more before she had gotten married.
In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza, a young girl from Mexico, describes the unfortunate fact of her and her family –consisting of Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki and Nenny, as well as Esperanza herself- moving to another neighborhood far away from where they lived in the past. The story tells what happens after the family moves to Mango Street as well as some information about each character that Esperanza meets during her journey including descriptions about herself and her family, stating that Esperanza is the narrator in the novel. The novel is viewed through Esperanza’s eyes, as she shows everything around her illiberally, from her culture to the people and events she faces. The method of narrating the story language wise
In “The House on Mango Street” Cisneros, the author, characterizes the protagonist Esperanza in a way that shows her growth from a young girl who is consumed by feelings of sadness about her position in life, to a woman, forced to grow up too fast, who has found what she wants in life and has the confidence to go after it, leading us to conclude that Esperanza is a dynamic character who changes on multiple levels throughout this
Caitlin Liddle March 22, 2017 English, period 6 HOMS essay As young men and women mature, barriers will appear in their everyday lives. Discovering how to move around these obstacles is challenging. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, various characters realize the struggle of breaking free from a trapped existence to move forward into independence. Using a variety of literary devices, Cisneros brings her readers on an adventure, showing them these hard encounters through motif and imagery.
Role models are an important aspect in Esperanza’s life. For example, In Esperanza’s life Sally is a negative role model. In order for Sally to have freedom from her apprehensive father; she married a man to escape, who will not let her talk to anyone or look out the window (102). This shows Sally is kept, traditional woman that used her sexuality for freedom, unfortunately failed.
English First Semester Final Essay To many readers, the most enjoyable stories are the ones that take place without sorrow, and betrayal. While these are both tragic topics, some pieces of literature are fantastic, while still broaching topics that may be harmful to the characters themselves. In the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya, the play A Midsummer’s Night Dream by William Shakespeare, and the novella The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, all contain examples of the these specific topics. These pieces of literature all share common themes of family, magic, and betrayal.