Comparison Of The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds could seem diverse, but they are comparable in more ways than one, presently we’ll center on one of them for this review. Esperanza is a Latina lady and Will is an African American. Esperanza has a few siblings whereas Will has one, but they are comparative in ways like how they are both children of color developing up. Since they both developed up in these family units, they have comparative stories and I would like to talk about them.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a Latina woman named Esperanza and her experiences of living on Mango street with her family. In the story, she says about how she lived in apartments before moving to

Her goals are No.1: leave Mango Street and get her own house, so she can accomplish goal No.2, which is being able to write her own stories. The last goal is to not become like the other older women and live on her own with no man. The topic of The House On Mango Street is breaking the cycle of other women by getting her own house without a man, along with her wanting to become a writer. “Bums in the Attic” is a short but important chapter because it reveals one of the things Esperanza wants to do when she earns, one of her goals, which is to get her own house. The issue is whenever they go see the house, she envies those who have houses like that. She always dreams about how “One day I'll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from. Passing bums will ask, Can I come in? I'll offer them the attic, and ask them to stay because I know how it is to be without a house”. (pg 87) Sandra Cisneros' book has several pieces of evidence supporting the topic of breaking the cycle when it comes to Latina women, but

When Will discovers that Shawn is murdered he wants to grieve over his brother, but he can't, he needs to follow the three rules that everyone follows, No.1 No crying, No.2 No snitching, and No.3 Revenge. Will believes that Riggs, one of Shawn’s friends, was the one to shoot him, so he will get even with him and murder Riggs. When he steps into the elevator of Riggs' apartment, he meets ghosts of his dead family and friends. While he’s in the elevator he needs to choose if he chooses to kill Riggs and get his revenge or if he breaks the cycle by not following the rules and spares Riggs. The cycle that is being broken in Long Way Down is the three rules, specifically the third one. “When bad things happen” Before the day Shawn died Will felt like there was something off with the moon, but he enjoyed looking at it, it’s just that “The moon is lucky it’s not down here where nothing is new”. (pg 21) What I feel like Jason Reynolds is saying when he quotes “Nothing is new here.” Is that for generations those same 3 rules have been in place and that no one is trying to break the cycle, but now that Will has the chance to break the cycle he should take it to change. Play dumb games, and win dumb prizes. Play smart games, win smart prizes The reason why I know this is that throughout the book, Will believes that he can do it and his family members he could do it “But you ain’t got it in you,