Preview

A Clean, Well-Lighted and the House on Mango Street

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
432 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
A Clean, Well-Lighted and the House on Mango Street
The two literature selections I will be comparing is: A Clean, Well-Lighted and The House on Mango Street. The theme for A Clean, Well-Lighted Place is unity. I chose unity as the theme to best describe this Hemingway piece because it has the good and the bad, but it brings the older waiter closer to the deaf patron. It shows the youth in the younger waiter, there is a mental disconnect from being younger and less experienced then the other two characters. The writing style is similar as there are the good things and bad things both mentioned. In the selection of The House on Mango Street, the theme is disappointment. The narrator and main character of the story speaks about all the houses in which she has lived in. She speaks how they are just a house and not a home and the house on Mango Street was supposed to be a home, and it is only a house. In reading more of a background on this piece since I am not familiar with it seems to show more of sadness in the situation. When the narrator realizes that the house she lives in is nothing what she wanted or had imagined because her parents put in a different picture in her mind. In the end it was a disappointment and it did not mean to her what she thought it should. The effectiveness of both authors’ uses of fictional literary devices and conventions is highly commendable. First with Hemingway’s selection, he uses dialogue between all the characters to bring them to life. When he does this the reader can relate easier with one or all the characters. The dialogue shows what kind of person the characters are. The setting and plot are clearly described because of the location and the characters. The story would not have been as effective without that specific setting and specific characters.
In the House on Mango Street uses image the most. Image is showing the timeline to where the narrator came from and what each house looked like and felt like. When the descriptions of the houses and what the family was like

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Perhaps one of the most important theme of The House on Mango Street is the appearance of home and identity. Esperanza, who constantly moving from house to house, did not feel like she was belonging to the house she lived in with her parents. Esperanza searching for a house of her own also symbolized the searching for her own identity. Toward the end of the book, she said that the house she has been searching for is the house she only dreamed of,…

    • 83 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In "The House on Mango Street" the author tells us how she found her dream. Her large family had to move all the time in search of a decent place to live. Experiencing what not having her own place is like, moving all the time and being ashamed of her shelters, Sandra Cisneros defines the features of the house of her dream. It has to be not just her own place to live, but also a place that she could be proud of. She describes her dream house: "inside it would have real stairs, not a hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on TV"; it "would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence"(501). Moreover, she says it has to be the house "...one I could point to" (Cisneros 502). Even though these features are not necessities for living, the author 's own dream becomes her necessity to be fulfilled.…

    • 725 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    That quote tells you all the places she has lived, but it doesn’t tell you why Mango Street is different. The reason Mango Street is different is because it is their house. They own it, but all the other houses they had rented.…

    • 5369 Words
    • 22 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story "The House on Mango Street" Sandra Cisneros unfolds her childhood memories where she and her family struggled with poor living conditions on the way to their own house, and she seems to suffer from it more than anyone of the family. When one day they finally get the house of their own and her family seems to be ready to settle with it, she continues suffering because it 's not "the house we 'd thought we 'd get" (501), the one she imagined and built up in her dreams. At that point Cisneros obtains her dream to be fulfilled: she decides that whatever happens, she must have the house of her dream. This difference between her dream and reality is quite obvious and seems to upset her a lot; however, the impact of it is tremendous because it caused her to obtain the energy necessary for a dream 's fulfillment.…

    • 492 Words
    • 2 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

    Exam 1 Study Guide

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Theme- In poetry, fiction, or drama, the theme is the dominating idea in a work (Pearson 547). In Ha Jin’s An Entrepreneur’s Story, the theme seemed to be disappointment. All throughout the story the main character thought by having money, the perfect girl, and everything that came along with it would make him happy. The outcome of the situation with Manshan, his wealth, and the mother-in-law shows him that getting what he wanted didn’t make his life turn out to be any happier than he pictured (Pearson 265).…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza is the main character of the book, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza is a latina girl growing up in Chicago, and moving from place to place until her family gets to Mango Street. Esperanza has conflicting ideas about Mango Street being a home to her, but she claims that it is not. Esperanza is a childish, teenager that remains a childlike throughout the novel.…

    • 650 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    House On Mango Street

    • 749 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a series of 44 vignettes describing the adolescence of Esperanza. These 44 vignettes, though at some points seem unconnected and unrelated, come back to the central symbol of the house. The homes described are a symbol of poverty and shame as well as a symbol of imprisonment, and this symbol reveals Esperanza’s future aspirations and themes of spousal abuse.…

    • 749 Words
    • 3 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
  • Good Essays

    In the book, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza the main character faces a lot of conflicts throughout the book. However, I think the one that caused the greatest change in her was the external conflict of what society and men expect of her and other woman. She found out that love was nothing like she thought it would be, and that woman are thought of as objects and not people.…

    • 702 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The House on Mango Street shows the reader the life of a Mexican-American girl through the character's eyes. Only, the story isn't just about her ethnicity and poor environment, it's about finding a home and growing up. Everybody could learn a lot from her. She teaches people of determination, inner strength, and connections that can't always be explained. Cisneros' vignettes read like individual stories with one big purpose and that in itself is beautiful.…

    • 478 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The vignette, “The House on Mango Street”, shows us a teen struggling with poverty, that is how the article and the vignette compare to each other. Esperanza, the main character in “The House on Mango Street,” feels ashamed about her social status. Ayra Moore states in her article “A teen might feel uncomfortable around peers…” This clearly explains how Esperanza is feeling. In the vignette “The House on Mango Street” she writes “The way she said it made me feel like nothing.” This was after a nun pointed to her house in and asked if she lived there. Obviously, she feels shame like most children in poverty…

    • 723 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Even though to be in conflict with society and especially its values and beliefs isn’t easy for many authors to do, Ernest Hemingway breaks out this idea in order to give the reader a deep and provoking novel, mixed with unusual themes for that time in the way they were depicted, like alcoholism and expatriation.…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When looking into works of literature, some works can seem to be similar or they can seem to be very different. Stories can have a similar setting, point of view, theme, or sense of language and style. However, all of these points could be very different as well and could cover different theme or style. In “Good Country People” and “Everyday Use” these stories have contrasting some elements, such as their points of view and use of symbolism, while their similarities in the underlying theme and the setting of these stories reveal a much stronger comparing between the two.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many themes that are important to the story in The House On Mango Street. Alienation and initiation are two themes that I found myself coming across repeatedly. Both of these themes are central in Esperanza’s story. Esperanza is someone who is torn between two different cultures, those being her Mexican heritage and her life in Chicago. In The House on Mango Street we watch as Esperanza struggles to grow up in a place where it is difficult to connect with both her life at home and integrate into the culture she is currently living in.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics