What Is Esperanza's Search For Identity In The House On Mango Street

By bringing one down, it creates a sad mood that will carry as one keeps looking at all of the negative things about themself. “The House On Mango Street”, a novella by Sandra Cisneros, expresses the way of being positive as one grows up. Esperanza looked low of herself and picked out the things she hates about herself. That makes her drown even deeper into a negative view. Soon she realizes that positivity brings happiness and positivity. Esperanza’s negative view of herself slowly changes as she begins to focus on her larger community and her place within it. Through this, Cisneros shows that knowing and accepting where one comes from is an important part of growing up and determining one’s identity.
Esperanza begins on how she hates everything about herself including her name, culture, and hair. She hates her name because it comes from a different culture and it is different from everyone else's name. In the vignette “ My Name”, Cisneros writes, “ It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. I muddy color. It is the mexican records my father plays on

Esperanza feels the same way. But through this novella, she starts to realize that her name isn’t really a bad name afterall. In the vignette, “The Three Sisters”, it writes, “ Esperanza, I said. Esperanza, the blue-veined man repeated in a high thin voice. Esperanza… a good good name”( Cisneros 104). At the beginning of the book, she made comments on her name like how it was sad. Now the only comments she is making are good comments. They are positive and self-confident. As Esperanza grows up, she begins to realize the good things in life that make her happy and she believes that if there is more of it, then the whole world would be happier. Esperanza grew to first, hating her name and her story behind it, to finding all these pretty things in the world that she never found before. She is not only happy about this, but about her culture and