The House on Mango Street consists of many short stories that explain the life of a young girl named Esperanza. It also explains her living situation; poverty in a crime riddance neighborhood. In addition, she also states the various obstacles that she has to overcome in her everyday life, such as wearing cheap clothes, eating the lunches her mom makes, living in her home, etc. Reading the book once without looking at it through an analytical perspective the book may seem two-dimensional and flat. While Cisneros’ stories may be short, after re-reading it to get a deeper understanding as to what she really means, the significance of the text becomes even more visible, and the interpretations become increasingly powerful. Cisneros uses metaphors, smilies, personifications, and foreshadowing to explain her emotions throughout the text. In the vignette, “Boys and Girls” Cisneros talks about how the boys and girls are cliquey when it comes to their friendships with one another. She explains …show more content…
Esperanza is jealous because she cannot say the same about her house on Mango Street. In the heat of all of this, Alicia reminds her that even if she doesn’t like the fact that she lives on Mango Street she will forever be from Mango Street. Esperanza responds by saying that she will not come back until someone fixes the town. This is where Cisneros uses foreshadowing to show Esperanza’s emotions towards Mango Street. The quote she uses is “Who’s going to do it? Not the mayor.” By her using this quote it foreshadows that Esperanza will come back in the future to change the way Mango Street appears. Cisneros wants to leave us with the idea of “Is she really going to come back?” This makes the audience think if Esperanza will actually come back to the house on Mango Street to change it to her likings or
Maggard 1 Cole Maggard Johnson English 1 6 November 2014 Character compare and contrast Esperanza from House on Mango Street, Melinda from Speak, and Jean Louise from To Kill a Mockingbird, are very interesting characters that seem to not share many characteristics in each of these novels. These three girls were the main characters of their own books, and in each of these books we learned that they don’t have a lot in common. The personality that these three have just shows how different they are. Here are just a few examples that make these three girls different.
The quote explains Esperanza wants to have a purpose, she wants to be free but is herself. She hopes that one day she’ll become someone different. Therefore, the quote from The House on Mango Street means being someone else.
Mango Street had ended the search. In the beginning of the novel, Esperanza reveals, “She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.... I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window”(Cisneros 11). At a very young age, Esperanza Corderos has an idea of what she wants and what she doesn't. Towards the end of her journal, Esperanza writes what was told, “You will always be Esperanza.
Mitchell Curtis English 9 / Period 6 Mr.Boyat 17 October 2016 Three Influential Characters in The House on Mango Street In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the story is developed through the eyes of a young girl Esperanza. She learns about the realities of life in a house that she recently moved into. There are many characters that are written as she learns about her new neighborhood. The three most influential characters in the novel are Sally, her Mother ,and Marin.
A language technique Cisneros uses is figurative language. This is seen in the text when Esperanza is talking about how the people in higher social classes constantly look down upon the people in lower classes. This is seen in the text when “People who live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us to live too much on earth. . . They have nothing to do with last week's garbage or fear of rats” (Cisneros 87). Cisneros uses figurative language to exaggerate how people in the upper-class act toward those in the lower class.
(Cisneros 109). This is a radical change from the first vignette, in which she says that the house on Mango Street is not a real house. Esperanza says it isn’t a house you can belong to. It also states, “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango.
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 book, 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 meantime they’ll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in (Cisneros 13).” This quote is a significant part of the story because it shows how Esperanza truly feels about herself and her family. She thinks that because she is poor and lives and a bad neighborhood people move away from her family. Esperanza doesn’t think very much of her or her family at all. She thinks that it is because of their race that people do not want to be near them.
Yet her refusal to do so prevents her growth. She instead chooses to sit by her window and miss something that she can no longer have. Esperanza throughout the novel does the same. She misses a home, even though at that moment her home is Mango Street. She is constantly repeating throughout the novel that Mango Street is temporary and not her home.
She knows she is lucky to have a less problematic family to support and her during good choices or bad decisions. Esperanza talks about the relationships of each family on Mango Street until she leaves and finds a better place. The other families on Mango Street also have it hard, but they don’t have the bond of the Esperanza’s
She dreams “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever” (707). Esperanza believes that she can change the way she is living and live a better life. She is trying to get a good education to become a more improved and intelligent person so one day she does not have to be poor.
Esperanza shifts from a follower into a confused individual, allowing her to begin her life as a woman outside of the oppressive nature of Mango Street. The suffocating stereotypes and sad, gloomy traits of the culture surrounding Esperanza contribute to the cultivation of her strong will and ardor. Mango Street opens her eyes to the abusive nature of her environment, and aids her in breaking the chain of corruption by defining and terminating the situation for herself. The neighborhood itself allows Esperanza to
There are many aspects of life which we desire such as materialistic desires and happiness. Among the things that we desire, freedom is the most abstract and indispensable one. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza, the main character, struggles trying to escape from poverty and getting restricted by men. From Esperanza trying to get out of Mango Street by education, to Esperanza’s mom giving up education, to Sally escaping from her dad by marrying a man, Cisneros suggests that only independence can offer a better life and freedom. Alicia and Esperanza are the only characters in the book who hope to find freedom through writing.
In the book, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is portrayed as a young innocent girl that drastically changes over the course of the book. Esperanza is new to mango street and encounters many challenges but also positive experiences that she is able to take away from mango street. In order for Esperanza to transform as a human it was inevitable for her to face the struggles on mango street. As Esperanza matures throughout the novel she experiences three major developments that shape her future through the awakening of maturity, responsibility and her awakening of her interest in poetry.
Esperanza’s neighborhood is not the richest and cleanest neighborhood around, in fact it could be counted as run down with a gloomy atmosphere. Esperanza’s house can be described as “small and red with tight steps in front.” With the description of this house we can assume that all the other houses will be similar and with that picture in mind, “those who don’t know any better comes into our neighborhood scared” because the setting is seen as a run down neighborhood. In a run down neighborhood you assume the worse because it's not like a clean