Esperanza Cordero is a twelve year old girl living in poverty. Her family moves to a run-down home on Mango Street in Chicago due to her parents wanting to independently own a house. The story begins when Esperanza is twelve, and continues for a year. Throughout the year, Esperanza and her friends Lucy and Rachel experience physical as well as mental changes. For the first half of the story, the girls are living as “children.” They are vulnerable to the harmful influences of society. Some times when they are susceptible to these influences is when they strut around town in high heels and when Esperanza does not notice the issue when a man kisses her at her job. During the summer time, the girls begin puberty and to become sexually mature. In…
Esperanza is the main character in the book “The House on Mango Street”. She started off as a naive girl that doesn’t know anything about the real world she lives in. As time passes she learns more about herself and the world around her. Another major character in this book is Sally. Sally was born into a harsh family where her father will beats her. Sally was always trapped by her father until one day she marries a man that treats her just like her father but, she doesn’t notices.…
Second, Cisneros also uses metaphors to explain how her great-grandmother becomes an independent woman. After she is forced to marry this man she becomes independent because she had to do something she never wanted to do which was marry. An example of a metaphor from the text that was used to show her independence is,”She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many so many women sit their sadness on an elbow”(Cisneros). This quote explains how unlike any other women Esperanza’s great-grandmother stared out a window her whole life to pass her sadness by while other girls would just hold their head up with their arm.…
"Esperanza. I have inherited [my great grandmother's] name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." Young Esperanza's opening thoughts in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street begins with the introduction of a surprisingly insightful disadvantaged Hispanic girl named Esperanza, who has just moved into a poor Latino neighborhood. Esperanza's opening remarks foreshadow a theme that continues to develop throughout the entire novel, cumulating piece by piece until a complete puzzle is produced. As Cisneros' Mango Street chronicles an emotionally pivotal year in the life of a young girl, the author herself presumably draws on personal experiences of being raised in an environment in which she struggles and feels like she does not belong. It is evident that Cisneros creatively expresses her own experiences in her writing, and goes so far as to dedicate the book "a las Mujeres," or to the Women. Though not purely biographical, striking similarities of race and background exist between the author and narrator such that Cisneros…
She didn’t want to work, but she has to. And she thought jobs are easy, but it’s difficult. She writes, “Then he asked if 1 knew what day it was, and when I said 1 didn't, he said it was his birthday and would I please give him a birthday kiss. 1 thought I would because he was so old and just as I was about to put my lips on his cheek, he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn't let go” (Cisneros 55). This quote seems strange in public and kissing stranger because she just kissed an Oriental man when he just met her at the job and she was very nervous. And Esperanza loves him because he has nice eyes and Esperanza wasn’t nervous. After that, they just sit together in the lunchroom and Esperanza heard him that his birthday is today and she has a present for him. The present is birthday kiss, therefore Esperanza kissed him. However, this chapter is at the end and she can do whatever she wants such as marry, kiss, earn money, work at the job, etc.…
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan is a book about the struggles Esperanza Ortega experienced growing up in Aguascalientes, Mexico on El Ranch de las Rosas. Esperanza’s life was altered in three major ways. She lost her father after some bandits shot him, she lost her house after her uncle Tio Luis set it on fire, and her perfect and rich life at only thirteen years old. After a streak of misfortune, Esperanza lost hope and thought her life would never get better.…
In the story The House on Mango Street the author Sandra Cisneros explains all the problems that the woman go through, such as how they live lives they do not want to. For example, on page 5, it states, “I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it.” (Cisneros 5). It also states “But I know how those things go,” this means that Esperanza is so use hearing that that she already knows that it is most likely not going to happen. Another reason why some of the women in the story do not want to live the lives they are living is the great-grandmother married a…
Esperanza has just gotten her first job and her first kiss, not the way she probably wanted. She grew up a little wanting to help her parents pay for her public school. In Esperanza’s growing up it showed that she is a maturing in a good way that will help her in the long…
The reason they said she lived too close to school so she needed to go home to eat. They directed her home and pointed to the boarded up houses and ghetto type street. Esperanza felt shame full of where she had lived and that she must go home to have lunch without being able to hang out with the other children.…
Alicia is Esperanza’s friend. She likes writing. She always studies all the night otherwise she would have a life like her mother. She wants happiness, her own life and to do the things whatever she wants. “Alicia, who inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus, because she doesn’t want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin,”(31-32). Alicia is very young; she still has a chance to achieve her dreams. She knows if she wants stay away the life like her mother’s which is doing boring works in the factory, she needs to keep studying and writing. She believes that keeping writing can make a big change on her life. she can get a better life and a life with more freedom.…
In Sandra Cisneros’ book, “The House on Mango Street,” Cisneros writes that, “the boys and girls live in different worlds” (Cisneros 8). There are only so many ways one could translate this sentence, and one of the meanings that can be deduced is that boys and girls are treated differently. This idea holds true today, but the gap between what people think boys can do and what people think girls can do has become smaller over the past years. But still, there are some prejudices left, things like girls can’t be faster/smarter/stronger than guys. Ideas such as, “you can't hit a girl,” and the phrases, “you hit/punch/run like a girl,” have not helped to heal the gap that still lives today.…
At the beginning of the novel, Esperanza is just a curious, innocent 13 year old girl. Having other women in her neighborhood sharing their stories, she develops a curiosity for her future. “ I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. Not this way, every evening talking…
One of them is Marina, a girl that sells make up and that has a bad reputation for she liked to get sexually involve with men. Even though people know Marina because of her closeness with men Esperanza still looks up to her and sees her as a very important person in her life. Another person that influences Esperanza is Sire. Even though Sire influences her indirectly because he is not telling her what to do, Sire touches his girlfriend Lois in a very special way. In a way that Esperanza desires to be touched. She longs to have someone like Sire who would touch her as a real woman. Other girl that is sexually active is Sally. Sally finds comfort in sex for her father doesn’t give her love. Most of the people look for sex because in their lives they are needed for love. Sally’s dad hits her and makes her fell miserable. Esperanza’s little sister Nenny is a young girl that is growing and learning new things therefore Esperanza doesn’t want Nenny to meet her friends for they would be a bad influence. Most of Esperanza’s friends are sexually active and thus she doesn’t want Nenny to learn all…
The vignette “The House on Mango Street” shows a serious issue; it discusses poverty and even though it was set in the 1960s, the issue, as shown by articles, is still relevant today. “The House on Mango Street” was written by Sandra Cisneros and is told from Esperanza, a girl struggling with poverty and is told through a series of vignettes. The two articles that will be referenced is “How Does Poverty Affect a Teen’s Lifestyle?” by Ayra Moore, and “Increasing the Minimum Wage Would Help Reduce Poverty” by Elise Gould. Poverty has always been a problem. In fact, 46.7 million people were in poverty in 2014. Out of that number, 33% of those people in poverty are under 18. Clearly, poverty is still a serious issue today that affects many people.…
Abramham Maslow explains motivation through a hierarchy of needs. He believes that humans are born with a desire to grow and reach self-actualization, but to do so must first gain physiological needs, safety needs, affiliation, and esteem. The landlady in Roald Dahl’s The Landlady portrays the characteristics of someone who has not achieved affiliation, the need for belonging and relationships. Loneliness is her prime motivator, everything she does steams from this. Loneliness can cause one of two things, and sometimes both things at the same time, to become predominate in a character. They become kind and/or dangerous. Loneliness is desperation filled with emptiness. This emptiness can cause people to do wonderful things, like become more…