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House on mango street protagonist essay
Cultural perspective of house on mango street
House on mango street protagonist essay
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This book was Pam Muñoz Ryan 's 13th book ever published out of 40. In the book, Esperanza Rising, it describes how there are many ups and downs during your life but to never be afraid to start over. The author of this book, Pam Muñoz Ryan, tells the main character 's story in the best way possible. Pam Muñoz Ryan wrote this book so it would have an impact on everyone who read it.
In the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros a 12-year-old Latina girl who moves into a house on Mango Street but hates it. It's small red with a tight door. She thought school would be a good idea but when she told people her name, students started to make fun of her. Cisneros deepens readers’ understanding of Esperanza’s identity with the use of figurative language.
She has a beautiful voice and many talents that could have allowed her to break the cycle of poverty. She chose to let shame take control of her, in hence, she lost her identity along the way. In turn, this only increased her level of shame. All these things considered, the theme shame and identity is linked to the title” The House on Mango Street” because her Mama never escaped the cycle of poverty and is still experiencing the results of her shame. Esperanza knows that through her writings that she can find her identity and break the family cycle of
Sandra Cisneros in the novel The House on Mango Street writes about culture, racism, languages, names, poverty, discrimination, friends and family to convey that racism causes insecurities in cultures. Esperanza is a dreamer, independent and occasionally unmindful. Cisneros shows that Esperanza is a dreamer when she describes the house Esperanza imagines what her new house would look like. Because Esperanza said “Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence” [Cisneros 4] readers can infer that Esperanza is a dreamer. By using a metaphor, Cisneros shows that Esperanza is independent. When Esperanza, opinionated and insecure, said “Nenny is too young to be my friend…
Sandra Cisrenos’ The House on Mango Street features vignettes that exemplify a connection between the identity of Esperanza, the protagonist, and the setting. Esperanza explains that the way people react to her house “makes me feel like nothing.” (Cisrenos 5). People in the story, such as a nun, judge Esperanza as a person through the dilapidated house that she lives in. Negative comments regarding her living conditions, such as the one by the nun, hurt Esperanza’s feelings, therefore lowering her self worth.
Much like a bad dream where one cannot move, Esperanza has no power or voice; her entire life resembles this nightmare. She is discriminated against, not only for her race, but for her gender and social status as well. Dealing with all this unfair treatment, she is easily taken advantage of, leading to a desperation for a better life. She craves for a “real house” but, due to her family’s poverty, they are forced to move frequently into dingy apartments. In The House on Mango Street, Cisneros’s use of rhetorical devices like imagery, analogies, and motifs, helps to create the text’s longing tone.
The House on Mango Street, is a broad interpretation of a Hispanic girl’s life and her coming of age. Throughout the course of the book, Esperanza, the narrator and protagonist, is constantly fighting a war between her autonomous mind and her forever changing sexual body. You, Esperanza, whose name means hope in English, how did you lose your hope? Your innocence? Your purity?
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.
Question 1 One of Esperanza’s social identities is that she is from a lower socioeconomic class. She and her family live on Mango Street which is characterized by poverty and limited resources. Another aspect of her social identity is her age. She’s a young adolescent girl and even though her exact age is not clear, the way her age is described is as if she is at a stage in her life where she’s experiencing physical, emotional, and social changes. Esperanza is entering the age where young people grapple with issues related to their identity, self-discovery, and the pressures of transitioning to young adulthood.
As I read the ‘The House on Mango Street,’ I was strongly affected by the way Sandra Cisneros explores the idea of identity, and how it can be tied down to a physical place. During the course of the book, I was inspired to reflect upon the houses I grew up in and the one I live in now, and how the memories that took place there, and even the very architectural structure of the house, influenced me. Understanding the sense of self is never easy. The identity of the narrator, Esperanza, is shown through vignettes; snippets of dialogue, short reflections— but more can be discovered when viewing her and her experiences through several lenses. I chose looking at how the physical being of the house on Mango Street, the period of adolescence, the
Coming of age is described as the transition between childhood and adulthood. It is usually determined when a child reaches a certain age and is no longer considered a minor. But was that the case in The House on Mango Street? Through a series of vignettes, Sandra Cisneros links the theme of coming of age. She uses a sense of “otherness”, loss of innocence, and a search for identity to help the reader understand what Esperanza had to do, what she had to go through, to be seen as mature or even considered an adult.
Esperanza’s Odyssey Esperanza ’s journey of self-identification is apparent in the novel “House on Mango Street”. Her hopes of leaving the barrio were clearly shown in different vignettes: “House on Mango Street”, “Bums in the attic”, “Beautiful and Cruel”, and so on. Her process of self-identification will entail her realizing that she is growing more mature, figuring out her sexuality, and understanding her culture as a Latina.
The exceptional Sandra Cisneros incorporates many stylistic choices in her book, The House on Mango Street. The vignettes, “The First Job”, “Hips”, and “Red Clowns” really accentuate her theme of Esperanza Cordero’s journey into adulthood. In these vignettes, Cisneros repeatedly illustrates the contrasts between expectation and reality in order to highlight Esperanza’s drive, as well as the complications she must face of growing up. In the vignette, “The First Job” Esperanza experiences first hand the obstacles she must overcome to attain her goal of growing up.
In the House on Mango Street, Esperanza is seeking for an identity of her own. In her current neighborhood, she struggles with economic, cultural, and gender based barriers to personal growth, and she believes that changing her surroundings is her solution; however, she realizes that to discover her identity, her ultimate destination is a home in the heart. The house on Mango Street was one that was the opposite of what Esperanza had dreamt her entire life. The house is, “…small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you 'd think they were holding their breath... bricks...crumbling in places, and the front door...so swollen you have to push hard to get in". (Cisneros 5)
The House on Mango Street is a touching and timeless tale told in short vignettes. It tells the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. Her life, and the lives of the people around her, are laid bare to the readers in this touching novella. In the beginning, Esperanza is not accepting of herself. Her family’s poor financial situation, the sadness of the people around her, and the problems she faces in her daily life make her very cynical.
