Culture identity is something many young people struggle with, especially teens as they go through discovering themselves. Esperanza is the kind of girl who struggles with her cultural background. She envies everyone else she sees as they fit in with the place they are at. Even if the life of others isn’t necessarily amazing she is still jealous for what they do get. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros a very touching story about how a young girl tries to fit in an American society being a Latino.
Not only is it that Esperanza cares so much about living in her house but so does her family. Esperanza tells stories that “This was the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up
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An example of this is Mamacita from the chapter No Speak English. Mamacita was an immigrant who knew very little English and felt ashamed of her culture. She never came outside and cried all day long by the window. However, unlike mamacita, Esperanza knows English and is able to communicate with others. But still feels lonely. Also, throughout the story Esperanza gets negative attention from boys because of her culture. For some men she comes across in the story they see her as a toy for her ethnicity and not being from America. This also embarrasses her as she is still trying to find out what love is but can’t because if the negative attention. Therefore, even though she struggles pushing through with her ethnicity, others have it just as hard as well, showing how different ethnicities can clash.
The House on Mango Street is a good representative of how many young hispanic girls feel in America. Meaning that although something in one place may seem like nothing embarrassment come easy to them. Just like her house, and Mamacita, both scenarios don’t seem as bad as there are small fixes, but because of their culture it means something completely different. Everyone can learn from this book to be nice to everyone as you don’t know what their background
She however is very reactive to this situation, she doesn’t tell anybody what happened, she steals late passes, hides in an abandoned janitor closet, and eventually ditches school. That example shows how irresponsible she is. House On Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is about a young girl who moves into a new house with her family in Chicago Illinois in the early 1980’s. Esperanza is not a very happy person, especially after the year she had at the house on Mango Street.
In the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza suffers with insecurities within herself and her race. Racism has always been an issue in all different types of races no matter the location and no matter the circumstances. Anyone who would come into Esperanza’s community would be frightened because of their
Mitchell Curtis English 9 / Period 6 Mr.Boyat 17 October 2016 Three Influential Characters in The House on Mango Street In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the story is developed through the eyes of a young girl Esperanza. She learns about the realities of life in a house that she recently moved into. There are many characters that are written as she learns about her new neighborhood. The three most influential characters in the novel are Sally, her Mother ,and Marin.
Esperanza experiences a sense of beauty and attention when she is strolling through the streets in high heels with Lucy and Rachel receiving comments such as “ ladies, lead me to heaven” (Cisneros 41) from a boy and jealousy from six girls who watch as they walk by. Later, Esperanza meets Rafaela who happened to be trapped in her house because of her husband and this probably has Esperanza thinking of what her future could be like with a husband. A short while after Esperanza befriends a girl named Sally who happens to be the prettiest girl her age at school. Sally receives all the attention from the boys but is beaten by her father at home because of her beauty. All of these experiences beginning with Esperanza not worried about boys to getting attention from boys is a key and then learning that your beauty can get you in trouble ultimately confuses Esperanza’s views on what to believe about
These problems coming to light through the many women Esperanza looks up to, drive her to rise above her obstacles, and become more than just another poorly treated woman. Despite the variety of girls in the neighborhood, one of Esperanza’s closest friends ends up being Sally, who has moved from one abusive home to the next. Sally’s father was a very strict man and she constantly disobeyed him once out of his sight. Whenever Sally is caught dressing “provocative” or acting “too old” her father decides to teach her a lesson.
However, Esperanza’s negative view of herself slowly changes as she begins to focus on her larger community and her place within it. Through this, Cisneros shows that knowing and accepting where we have come from is an important part of growing up and determining who we are. In the beginning of
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.
“All discomfort comes from suppressing your identity”(Bryant H. McGill). We can not decide upon our own identity; It comes from our hopes, dreams, memories, culture and experiences. We can not suppress or change who we are or where we came from and must except ourselves. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros introduces the main character Esperanza, who is initially ashamed and tries to repress parts of her identity. One of the main themes in The House on Mango Street is E. acknowledging her name and mango street as part of her self identity.
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
This shows that even though the community and neighborhood environment doesn't encourage women to get an education and for them just to be housewives. Esperanza's mom still supports women getting a good education and getting their own things in life. This quote shows that Esperanza's mom isn't affected by the community by motivating Esperanza to get an education and being self-reliant even though this isn't what most of the community believes. When Esperanza is thinking about how she wants to be in the future she says something about her little sister Nenny. The author states "Nenny says she won't wait her whole life for a husband to come and get her"(88).
In the series of vignettes The House on Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros details the life of main character Esperanza, a young girl living in a barrio of Chicago. As Esperanza tells the reader about her experiences in her day to day life, the reader hears about her struggles and dreams, her hopes and expectations in life and how these affect her. Being a young girl, Esperanza holds naivety and hope for the world, not having experienced many mature situations or society yet, and since she is going through the time in her life when she begins experiencing these issues, we see her heartbreak and the world she knew shatter. For example, when Esperanza and her family move to Mango Street, as our story kicks off, her parents would often talk about the life that they would get when they win the lottery, like having “A real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year. And our house would have running water and pipes that worked.
Obstacles Numerous people stumble upon obstacles, but only a few can overcome them. Most obstacles are influenced by the values of the society. In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, Liesel Meminger overcomes her lack of education and her different beliefs on Jewish people. In Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet both overcome the obstacle of not being able to be together because of the feud between their families. In “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza overcomes the obstacle of not fitting into her society because of her lack of money.
The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.
Stereotypes are simple images or beliefs over the attributes assigned to a particular social group, are models of behavior that become schemes deeply rooted in our mentalities to the point that we adopt them as part of human naturalness. Stereotypes can be racial, religious, sexual and social. These could be the caused of a known incident or attitude years earlier, or simply the result of frequent rumors. Stereotypes can affect different spheres of society. These assumptions can filter into many aspects of life.
Esperanza’s interest is writing poem, appears in many of the chapters where it explains a way of bonding with her community by sharing poems with one another. Because Esperanza has become a writer her observations strengthen throughout the novel. One example of how she matures through writing is in the beginning of the book she told stories that were obviously meant for a younger audiences but through the middle of the book she started to use more observation based upon what she saw which helped develop the story more for the reader. This change shows that she is becoming an artist, and also that she is starting to distance herself from her community, since she focuses more on capturing experiences than living through them, she starts to further her self from interaction and focuses more on observation of the people around her. By the end of The House on Mango Street, she knows that she underwent a huge transformation and her relationship with mango st is starting to weaken.