Imagery In The House On Mango Street
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.
Cisneros uses the motif of numerous colors to illustrate Esperanza’s emotions towards being perplexed in a non-positive place. For example, Cisneros uses the color yellow to portray negative situations. Lucy, Rachel, and Esperanza wear high
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Darius is someone who most don’t take seriously, but when he begins to speak about the sky, everyone listens. In the vignette Darius & the Clouds, “… today [Darius], pointed up because the world was full of clouds…” (33). Darius is staring up at the clouds because he wants to be free, and doesn’t know how to be. Darius is wondering what he could become, but doesn’t know how to achieve it. This also occurs in a vignette about Aunt Lupe. When Aunt Lupe passed away, “maybe the sky didn’t look […]. Maybe God was busy” (59). The motif of the sky is being mentioned as something that is safe, or represented as being free and on one’s own. Esperanza’s aunt was struggling in the way that she couldn’t be free that day, she couldn’t be self-sustaining. Although motif was a great way to demonstrate the theme, the use of imagery was also a great choice in literary …show more content…
Esperanza attempt multiple times to mature much faster than necessary making her feel as though she is stuck. Relying on the literary devices of motif and imagery, Sandra Cisneros, in her novella, The House on Mango Street, shows her audience Esperanza’s struggle to escape into independence. Cisneros encourages her readers to move past the hardships of growing up, despite the barriers in life.
Not only is Cisneros’ use of motif showing Esperanza, and her friends, in a tough situation, but also how she is now becoming confused about and growing
Sylvie Parrrish Play Monologue
1974 Words | 8 Pages“Play for me.” When Sylvie Parrish was seven years old, she often dreamed of the sky. The sky had always filled her with longing, though for what she was never sure. The harsh whorls of blues and blacks painted behind stark spots of yellow, the moon a sliver of an object emitting a warm glow onto the land below. The sky was a kingdom; a palace for the heroes of myth to live on forever.
The House On Mango Street Hopes And Dreams
287 Words | 2 PagesHouse 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”
The House On Mango Street Shoes Analysis
1240 Words | 5 Pages. . scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress” (47). Esperanza is so ashamed of the shoes that she doesn’t want to dance. This incident with her shoes connects with her feelings about so many other things in her life like the house she wants. Her parents told her one day they would move “into a house, a real house that would be ours for always . . .
Influential Characters In The House On Mango Street
562 Words | 3 PagesShe is a Puerto Rican girl that wants “someone to change her life” and spends her days babysitting at her house (27). Esperanza gets the idea of marrying a rich man to get out of Mango Street. Marin also tells her about boys “is for the boys to see us and for us to see them” (27). These two ideas Marin shared with Esperanza shows how she can leave Mango Street and live a better life. To conclude, Sally, Mom, and Marin are the three most influential characters in the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for opening abusive relationships, staying in school for the better, and leaving poverty by marrying a rich man to the main character
The House On Mango Street
1224 Words | 5 PagesSexuality in adolescence Sexuality is the most notorious and common sign of development in adolescence. “The House on Mango street”, by Sandra Cisneros is a coming of age novel, where Esperanza transitions from a girl into a young teen. In her journey, Esperanza comes across many challenges, she is forced to grow up by life’s adversities. In the short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, a mother advises her daughter and scolds her into becoming a decent woman. In her guidance, the mother is worried about her daughter’s sexual activity and warns her about the consequences of improper behavior.
Sexism In The House On Mango Street
1204 Words | 5 PagesMany girls desire a female role model from a young age. The way these women are treated, and deal with this treatment can heavily impact the way young girls view themselves, and their future as well. Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street brings attention to issues of sexism and gender roles. This is done through a series of vignettes about the main character Esperanza navigating life by the example of her many role models. Each role model impacts Esperanza in a special way, Sally who is married at 13, Marin who is waiting to be rescued by a man, and Alicia who is balancing school and home responsibilities.
Change In Esperanza's The House On Mango Street
1095 Words | 5 PagesThe House on Mango Street is a touching and timeless tale told in short vignettes. It tells the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. Her life, and the lives of the people around her, are laid bare to the readers in this touching novella. In the beginning, Esperanza is not accepting of herself. Her family’s poor financial situation, the sadness of the people around her, and the problems she faces in her daily life make her very cynical.
House On Mango Street Coming Of Age Quotes
1348 Words | 6 PagesThe main protagonist Esperanza, matures from a childish girl to a young confident woman through many critical and life changing events in the story. Ultimately, the author, Sandra Cisneros implements the symbols of confidence, the house on mango street and the metaphor of shoes to show how Esperanza develops into a more mature state. Sandra Cisneros
Beauty In The House On Mango Street
893 Words | 4 PagesBeauty is a very powerful and prominent thing. It’s what makes you get out of bed in the mornings and makes the world go round. Despite all that, there are some negatives of it as well. “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros gives a window back in time to a point where a little girl named Esperanza grows up on the streets of Chicago. Through the numerous rapes, abusive relationships, and the absence of respect for women, Cisneros portrays a theme that beauty is a double edged sword through the characters Esperanza and Sally.
Windows In The House On Mango Street
640 Words | 3 PagesThroughout 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).
Poverty In The House On Mango Street
1117 Words | 5 PagesBecause Esperanza’s achievements aren’t at top of the priority list for her family, Esperanza does not have to do much which reflects her life in the future. Not only are low expectations about achieving great things, but are also about the way people dress. Esperanza’s neighborhood consists of kids whose “clothes are crooked and old” (Cisneros 14). Notably, Esperanza is not expected to dress up fancy whereas if she goes to another neighborhood, their clothing and physical appearance are given a lot of attention. From these examples, one can see that when Esperanza goes into other neighborhoods or grows older and
The House On Mango Street Adulthood Analysis
1212 Words | 5 Pages“That’s the problem with the world, too many people grow up.” – Walt Disney. Growing up quickly is a dream for many girls. They will make countless attempts in hopes of becoming a woman faster. In Sandra Cisneros’s, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza becomes one of those girls who spends all of their precious time trying to grow up quickly.
Symbolism In A Good Man Is Hard To Find
1254 Words | 6 Pages(366). The sky is an indistinct image and can be thought about in two different ways by the reader. In one way, there is something bleak and grim about the cloudless, sunless sky because it 's empty. You could see this emptiness as a reflection of the family 's extreme circumstances at the end of the story: they 're being killed by the Misfit in the middle of nowhere, without anyone to help or hear them. The family also probably felt empty themselves as they start to lose their lives one by one realizing what was actually happening.
House On Mango Street Culture
437 Words | 2 PagesThe 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. Mango Street is the source of Esperanza’s growth through her childhood, and it hides sadness and longing underneath stereotypes of Hispanic people. The characters that live in the broken-down neighborhood all seem to represent pigeonholed views of Latino individuals.
Analysis Of Esperanza In The House On Mango Street
1115 Words | 5 PagesIn the book, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is portrayed as a young innocent girl that drastically changes over the course of the book. Esperanza is new to mango street and encounters many challenges but also positive experiences that she is able to take away from mango street. In order for Esperanza to transform as a human it was inevitable for her to face the struggles on mango street. As Esperanza matures throughout the novel she experiences three major developments that shape her future through the awakening of maturity, responsibility and her awakening of her interest in poetry.
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