Preview

The House on Mango Street

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1071 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The House on Mango Street
The House on Mango Street
Esperanza saw self definition as a struggle, the struggle for self-definition is a common theme, and in The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s struggle to define herself underscores her every action and encounter. Esperanza must define herself both as a woman and as an artist and her perception of her identity changes over the course of the book. Esperanza portrayed a vivid picture to the audience of her surroundings, the people she encountered, and her interpretation on the events that took place with her and the people in her life at that time.
Time and time again Esperanza struggled with how she was perceived and how she wished to be perceived. In the beginning of the book Esperanza wants to change her name so that she can define herself on her own terms, instead of accepting a name that expresses her family heritage. She wants to separate herself from her parents and her younger sister in order to create her own life. She begins to want to be seen as “beautiful” by men as she matures through the book, Esperanza has to struggle to define what true inner beauty is and she realizes it’s not just when a man tells you he “loves you”. Also at the beginning of the book she makes it very clear that she wished she wasn’t poor and wanted to get a better life for herself with no men. Esperanza lives through the stories and experiences of other characters in the book and eventually becomes involved in them. It takes time for Esperanza to mature and go through some traumatizing things in life in order for her to finally get a sense of self.
Esperanza 's struggle with self definition will play a key role in the outcome of future, as to what she wants to be and what she wants to avoid beginning. Without the “struggle” which came through trial and error, poverty and sexual assault, she wouldn’t have any idea of who she would want to become as an individual. Without experiences you will never gain knowledge of your own and have to depend solely on

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Connecting the snoring, the rain and Mama’s hair is to give the scene a calming and cozy atmosphere. This section of “Hair” compares all the safe and comforting things in Esperanza’s life to convey that when she experiences them it makes her feel secure. This is similar to a security blanket that children have as a baby, they hold them to feel safe when their parents are not close or all the time. Esperanza expressing that her mother’s hair comforts her, shows how close she is to her mother because just looking at her hair makes her feel safe. However, this was not the case for many children in Esperanza’s position, numerous parents would have financial and marriage problems at the least and when the stress would build up, they would take it out on their children. Many children needed something like Esperanza’s mother’s hair so that they would feel safe without looking for another more harmful way to distract themselves from the pressure of their daily lives. Furthermore, Esperanza was extremely fortunate because her parents loved her and was for the most part safe at home. The effect of linking Esperanza’s father’s snoring, the rain and her mama’s hair on the audience was to create a soothing ambience and take a break working about growing up and the dangers in that process. This chapter was the most serene chapter so far in the book because she is talking about peaceful things in her life. On the contrary, the other chapters (so far) have been discussing growing up and the pressures of developing into a woman/adult. The author wanted to discuss these pleasures to take a break from her troubles so that the story would not become dark. In conclusion, the author wrote the book like how Esperanza lived and thought, she was constantly reminded of the troubles of maturing, but had reminders, like her mother’s hair, that would ease her stress and remind her it was…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    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…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory 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
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Edna, the owner of the apartment next door of Esperanza, has a daughter Ruthie. Ruthie came one day, it seemed, out of nowhere. She is the only adult Esperanza knows who still likes to play like a child. For example, Ruthie likes candy and doesn’t go inside the stores when they go shopping together. Ruthie is like a child who is stuck in an adult body. Also who is being sheltered by the adult world. This connects to the topic of how even adults can be trapped in a childish world and prevent one from growing up.…

    • 97 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Her perception is absolutely crushed after the experience at the carnival and is forced to regress back into a vulnerable and powerless child again. In Cisneros' Monkey Garden, Esperanza tries to protect Sally but is emotionally humiliated. In Red Clowns however, it is Esperanza who needs Sally to save her and winds up sexually humiliated. The lack of personal responsibility between women that Esperanza perceives in her world leaves her feeling alienated and deeply confused. Once again, the narrator suffers a crisis of identity and must reevaluate her role as a writer and growing young woman. It is not until after her assault at the carnival does Esperanza drop the notion of being a "beautiful and cruel" woman to eventually accept her identification as a budding…

    • 1599 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the result, Esperanza wrote about her whole life and this novel is like the diary. This book is very interesting and important because Esperanza is like keeping her diary and wrote about her life. These paragraphs written about Esperanza’s ages from she was young to older and whole life. I would guess that her novel is furtive for her…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Esperanza Rising

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages

    When she became a fieldworker, Esperanza had to go to a Mexican fieldworker farm in California to work. Her whole family came except for her grandmother, Abuelita because she broke her ankle in the fire. Esperanza was heartbroken because she had never been separated so far from a Abuelita. At the farm Esperanza met a girl, who was very rude to her, named Marta who convinced other Mexicans to strike for better living arrangements. Mama became sick with Valley Fever after a dust storm and later came down with Pneumonia when she was admitted into the hospital.This scared Esperanza because she could have gotten her fired. After the moment her mother got sick, Esperanza decided that she need to be the money maker in the house so she could pay for Mama’s doctors and medicine. Esperanza experience so many feelings in such a short amount of time, that it was clear to her that she needed to become the la patrona-head of the…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good 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

    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.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    House On Mango Street

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Esperanza first identifies her difficulty with her society, and then accepts and at the same time defies it. In "Boys and Girls" the reader sees a young girl that is investigating her possibilities in life. In "Beautiful and Cruel" the reader sees a woman who has become independent from the boundaries of her society. Esperanza is tied down by the "anchor," and then casts it off with her refusal to wait for the "ball and chain." Esperanza changes from a little girl who makes wishes about her future, to a woman who takes her future in her hands as she begins a "war" on the limitations that she face in her Latino society.…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza sees everyone in her community and in someway gets influenced by them. Whenever Esperanza sees someone in her neighborhood doing something worth writing about, she gets into deep thought about it. Esperanza also gets influenced by her own friends and family too. In this book Esperanza gets affected by the community she lives in and the people that live there.…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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 boo, 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. In the chapter of "The House on Mango Street", "a nun from my school passed by and saw me playing out front. The downstairs dromat had been boarded up because it had been robbed two days before the owner had painted on the wood YES WE' RE OPEN so as not to lose business. Where do you live? She asked. There, I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there? She responded. You live there? The way she said it, made me feel like nothing". This quote reinforces the fact of how apprehensive and shameful Esperanza is during the beginning of the story, where one can clearly see the state of insecurity of Esperanza. This is ultimately contrasted through the progression of the book when Esperanza maturity is shown in the quote," Passing bums will ask, can I come in? I'll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house" through this quote you could clearly see the juristic growth from the beginning of the book. Esperanza grows out of her childish and arrogant state to a more confident becomes to feel more empathy towards others, showing her transformation into a confident mature women. Esperanza will even a homeless a place to stay regardless the state or how the house looks like, but she…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    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…

    • 699 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She would be so much better off if she kept walking past her abusive household and to a place where “nobody could make [her] sad and nobody would think [she’s] strange because [she] likes to dream and dream”(83). Next, Marin, Esperanza’s neighbor, stands “under the streetlight…waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life”(27) instead of going out into the world and making changes herself. The way the women of Mango Street live dissatisfies Esperanza. They have either accepted the way their lives played out, knowing that they cannot escape, or simply wait around for a miracle to take them out of their situations. Her own family is no exception. Her mother “could’ve been somebody” with her “velvety opera voice that speaks two languages” but instead, became a housewife after her “shame [kept her] down because [she] didn’t have nice clothes” (91). Her great grandmother, and namesake, was once a “wild horse of a woman” before her husband threw a sack over her head and “carried her off…as if she were a fancy chandelier”(11). Esperanza has inherited her relative’s name, but does not want to inherit her place by the window, where her great grandmother “sat her sadness on an elbow”(11) and looked out, watching her life pass her…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The House on Mango Street

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages

    People got different lifes but a negative thought change it all. Esperanza feels alone and she interprets herself as a lonely girl with bad luck. At the beginning of the book she doesn´t accept who she is. She says that because she got the same name as her grandma she would have the same future as her, waiting for someone who changes her life. Esperanza´s negative view of herself, knowing and accepting where we have come from is an important part of growing up and determining who we are.…

    • 405 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays