Formal Analysis of House on Mango Street
Formal Analysis Essay
(House on Mango Street &The Hour of the Star)
The House on Mango Street is a short story collection that narrates the upbringing of a Latino girl in a rough neighborhood. The Hour of the Star is a single story that narrates the life of a Brazilian girl from the age of nineteen to the time of her death. While some of the situations that the girls encounter are similar and both narrators use the protagonist names as an allegory held throughout the story. In contrast Sandra Cisneros uses the allegorical names to directly tie with her characters while Clarice Lispector uses the names to contrast with her characters.
The use of allegorical names by both authors helps provide a backstory and even a foreshadowing of the future for the protagonist of both stories. In the “House on Mango Street” Sandra Cisneros form of allegorical names directly ties with the protagonist Esperanza. The direct translation to English of Esperanza’s name is hope. The word hope can be used to describe almost every challenge that the protagonist faces and seems as if the author chose to direct the short story to this one word. From the beginning of the story the protagonist hopes to achieve her dream of moving into the typical American dream house as she does not like the residence that she is currently in. During the buildup to the climax of the story the protagonist strives for the beauty of her older peers and create separation between her and her current peers. As for the climax the protagonist realizes that she is the hope that others are looking for as she will be the one to help others out of the poverty stricken neighborhood physically and or metaphorically by writing about their story for other people to read. Sandra Cisneros also keeps this form of using allegorical names with her characters as the names and titles of the chapters represent what the character is struggling through.
In “The Hour of the Star” Clarice Lespector uses the allegorical names
(House on Mango Street &The Hour of the Star)
The House on Mango Street is a short story collection that narrates the upbringing of a Latino girl in a rough neighborhood. The Hour of the Star is a single story that narrates the life of a Brazilian girl from the age of nineteen to the time of her death. While some of the situations that the girls encounter are similar and both narrators use the protagonist names as an allegory held throughout the story. In contrast Sandra Cisneros uses the allegorical names to directly tie with her characters while Clarice Lispector uses the names to contrast with her characters.
The use of allegorical names by both authors helps provide a backstory and even a foreshadowing of the future for the protagonist of both stories. In the “House on Mango Street” Sandra Cisneros form of allegorical names directly ties with the protagonist Esperanza. The direct translation to English of Esperanza’s name is hope. The word hope can be used to describe almost every challenge that the protagonist faces and seems as if the author chose to direct the short story to this one word. From the beginning of the story the protagonist hopes to achieve her dream of moving into the typical American dream house as she does not like the residence that she is currently in. During the buildup to the climax of the story the protagonist strives for the beauty of her older peers and create separation between her and her current peers. As for the climax the protagonist realizes that she is the hope that others are looking for as she will be the one to help others out of the poverty stricken neighborhood physically and or metaphorically by writing about their story for other people to read. Sandra Cisneros also keeps this form of using allegorical names with her characters as the names and titles of the chapters represent what the character is struggling through.
In “The Hour of the Star” Clarice Lespector uses the allegorical names