Preview

Function/S of Space in Sandra Cisneros’ the House on Mango Street

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1348 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Function/S of Space in Sandra Cisneros’ the House on Mango Street
Function/s of Space in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street

Space occupies a central role in Sandra Cisneros’ coming-of-age novel The House on Mango Street. Using the example of the house shows this very plainly. This can be seen at the very beginning of the book, namely the title. Although it is a female Bildungsroman, the novel is not named after its protagonist Esperanza Cordero, but her residence. It shows that Cisneros attached much importance to the house on Mango Street and the reader also learns that it is of central significance for the development of the young girl. On Mango Street, she develops not only physically, but also in terms of her character and her own identity. That is why I will concentrate on the function of the house rather than on other different settings in the novel.

Usually, the house is a symbol for warmth and shelter. It represents the place of the family and where one belongs to. But the first sentence of the initial vignette shows, that this does not apply to the house on Mango Street. Esperanza’s family has been constantly on the move and they lived in several apartments in different cities. The feeling of being rooted therefore never existed, just as little as the feeling of comfort. For Esperanza, the house on Mango Street does not symbolize shelter, but shame. In the first vignette Esperanza depicts the family’s house in a very negative way, run down and with cramped confines. It is neither “[…] the house Papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket […]”, nor “[…] the house Mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed.” (Cisneros 4). The house on Mango Street is at last their own, but not the one Esperanza and her family have longed for. It symbolizes “[t]he conflict between the promised land and the harsh reality” (Valdès “Canadian Review” 57). Especially for Esperanza, who is in quest of her own identity, reality and hope (Spanish: esperanza) diverge here, which means that Esperanza has not



Cited: List: Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. McCracken, Ellen. "The House on Mango Street: Community-oriented Introspection and the Demystification of Patriarchal Violence." In: Horno-Delgado, Asuncion et al (eds). Breaking Boundaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989. 67-71. Rukwied, Annette L. The search for identity in two Chicana novels : Sandra Cisneros ' The house on Mango Street & Ana Castillo 's the mixquiahuala letters. Stuttgart: Universität, Magisterarbeit, 1998. Valdés, Maria Elena de: “In Search of Identity in Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street”, Canadian Review of American Studies, Vol. 23, No. 1, Fall 1992. 55-69. Valdés, Maria Elena de. "The Critical Reception of Sandra Cisneros 's The House on Mango Street." Gender, Self, and Society. Ed. Renate von Bardeleben. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1993. 287-300. (7.01.2008) (7.01.2008)

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The chapter 5 and chapter 6 and throughout chapter 8 of the book called, The House On Mango Street; represent an ethnic picture from both the past and the present of Mango Street and the surrounding neighborhood. Cathy, Esperanza’s friend indicated what the neighborhood may have been like in the past, while the two families that moved into her house once Cathy’s left were more representative of the whole neighborhood as Esperanza came to experience it. Along the Mango Street lived the black man who was unwelcome from the rest of the neighborhood, different from the people Esperanza sees from day to day. This guy race makes him so unfamiliar that Esperanza is afraid to talk to him. Cathy has shown Esperanza the neighborhood’s two cultures, Latin American and American, and two languages, Spanish and English, which revealing the new cultural makeup of Mango Street. Cathy also provided a window into how outsiders view Esperanza’s neighborhood, even though Cathy is blind to her own family’s similarities to the families around them. Cathy’s family was moving because the neighborhood is “getting bad,” a racist reason that Esperanza immediately understands. Esperanza’s immigrant family, as well as other families like hers, was, in Cathy’s family’s view, causing the neighborhood to deteriorate, and the only thing to do was to move. However, Cathy’s family did not seem to be struggling any less than the other families in Esperanza’s neighborhood. Their house, which Cathy’s father…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the book “The House On Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a coming to age novel. It tells a story about Esperanza a latina girl growing up in the wonderful world of Chicago with her friends and family. Esperanza and her family recently have moved to mango street. They have moved around a lot in her lifetime because they are poor. Esperanza is determined to leave the house on mango street but in her latino culture most women leave by…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sandra Cisneros, born in Chicago on December 20, 1954 is a renowned Latin-American novelist who is best known for her novel “The House on Mango Street.” Throughout her childhood Cisneros and her six brothers were frequently bouncing from home to home, each time in a seemingly worse neighborhood. Although Cisneros moved on to earn many academic accolades in her adult life, she struggled to maintain good grades at the Catholic school she attended in Chicago. However, once she attended high school she became interested with poetry and became the magazine editor of her school, and eventually moved on to earn her bachelor's degree from Loyola University in 1976.…

    • 227 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The House on Mango Street is the “coming of age” story of a Mexican-American girl named Esperanza Cordero. The story covers a year in Esperanza's life starting with when she moved to the house on mango street. As the year progresses Esperanza grows emotionally and artistically, as the novel roams through her experience of life. Esperanza, her friends (Rachel, Lucy), and her sister Nenny have many adventures throughout the book. Esperanza has many life experiences including the art of poetry and music also the downsides of poverty and shame. Although the novel includes unforgettable men it also includes women who a trapped in many ways. For Example, Mamacita does not leave the apartment b/c she is afraid of the English language. Rafaela who…

    • 178 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    House on Mango

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Have you ever been disappointed by high expectations? Although fulfilling said expectations might not be possible at the time, it is not reason to forfeit or throw in the towel; rather with enough effort these goals may be realized. The expectations set by Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros’s “The House on Mango Street” inevitably leads to disappointment; however fulfilling these dreams is still a possibility despite of its non-actuality. Esperanza lives out unfulfilling life disappointed by the uninspiring house she lives in, a worthless music box, and the dream of eating in the canteen.…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza, the main protagonist of The House on Mango Street, expresses respect,admiration, and love for trees throughout The House on Mango Street, and her affection emanates from identification with their appearance, liveliness, and self-rule. In the chapter “Four Skinny Trees,” Esperanza characterizes the trees in front yard, saying she and the trees understand each other, even that the trees help teach her things. She relates to trees because like herself, they don’t seem to belong in the neighborhood of Mango Street and because they live despite the concrete that tries to keep them in the ground. Esperanza thinks that she doesn’t seem to belong, and she plans to live life despite the obstacles created by her poor neighborhood. Esperanza…

    • 144 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, we read about a girl named Esperanza, who lives in a Latino neighborhood in Chicago, a city where a lot of destitute areas are racially segregated. In a series of vignettes, Esperanza explains the time she meets her neighbors and the difficult times in their lives. Throughout the book, it proposes a selection of characters and their cultural background, how they are affected by banishment, poverty, and are even trapped.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The House on Mango street is a feminist piece of literature because it brings attentions to the sexist way the men in Esperanza’s society regard women. Esperanza tells her story by focusing on the women around her who are owned by the dominant men in their lives due to restricting gender roles that encompasses not only women but men. “My great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off...She (Esperanza’s grandmother) looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.” (11) Cisneros brings attention to the cruel way that men in Esperanza’s society treat women. The normality of these discriminatory actions describes a gender role that society has set for men, to be the dominant figure in…

    • 273 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On the book The House on Mango Street Esperanza is a little girl that is affected by different situations. There are things that happened to her that shaped her as an individual and change her perspective of life. Female sexuality is a really strong topic where we can see how young females are affected with it and how they see it. Esperanza is a young virgin girl at the beginning of the book and she longs to have a sexual encounter for it is something new for her. She is just a child and things started to happen in her life and mind that prepared her for that special situation. Esperanza and her friends think that by having sex they will become women, real women. Through out the book we see different situations with sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is a big issue that has been taking over little girls’ minds…

    • 1024 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novel, The House on Mango Street, isn’t too long but is relatable to many people . In the novel the protagonist, Esperanza, recalls her days from with…

    • 438 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    House on Mango Street

    • 832 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In 1984 Sandra Cisneros wrote the novella The House on Mango Street based on the narrator, Esperanza’s, first year living on Mango Street. A young Latino girl, by the name of Esperanza, is growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and is determined to leave her life on Mango Street in her past. In this novella Cisneros explores the effect of loss of innocence on Mango Street. The roles of women and how they treat each other is highly prominent in The House on Mango Street. Throughout Esperanza’s year on Mango Street she begins to realize that women have a responsibility to not harm each other but to help.…

    • 832 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Mango Street Essay

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout history, women have been seen as inferior to men. In the novel, The House On Mango Street, the main character, Esperanza sees many examples of women who are treated lower by their husbands. These women are imprisoned in their own homes on Mango Street. The author, Sandra Cisneros uses the motif of Imprisoned Females to show that women have been seen as inferior to men.…

    • 261 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The biggest decision people make is deciding who they are. In the story The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the author creates a conflict of Esperanza’s internal struggle to find her identity, reminding us that the decision of who you are can be life or death. We first learn about this conflict when Esperanza is talking about her name, and how it doesn’t present her as who she is. Throughout the story, Esperanza realizes that people judge her due to the fact that she only shows them the negative aspects of her life. She isn’t being herself and showing people the kind, sweet person she is underneath. As a result of her trouble with identity, Esperanza distances herself from people.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    World History

    • 1527 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Before returning to school next school year, you will need to read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and complete this assignment. This organizer is intended to guide your reading and focus your thoughts in preparation for the discussions, summer reading quiz and writing assignments you will engage in when you return in September.…

    • 1527 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays