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Identity Crisis: The House On Mango Street

494 Words2 Pages

Joey Feniello
Hingano
English Term 4
May 19 2016

Identity Crisis
The House on Mango Street is based around one girl and her struggle to fit together the pieces of her identity together to find herself. This is apparent throughout the entire novel. Important things that contribute to her identity are Latin American Traditions, Esperanza's neighborhood, family relationships and dynamics, friendships, and encounters with others. Esperanza is Mexican-American. Her family practices Latin-American traditions. These traditions are a large part of Esperanza and her family's identity. Her dad provides for the family and works while her mom's jobs are taking care of the children, the marriage, and taking care of the house.
Esperanza's neighborhood …show more content…

One part is Esperanza being mildly shy. Her shyness is especially apparent when she is around people who she doesn't know well. This is probably because of the intimidation she feels that these people pose to her. For example, in the chapters "The First Job" and "A Rice Sandwich" Esperanza is too shy to eat with her other co-workers and friends, as shown in the quote from "The First Job": "When lunch time came I was scared to eat alone in the company lunchroom". Another prominent part of Esperanza's personality is the trust she has in others. This is one of Esperanza's weaknesses as an individual because it allows her to be gullible and vulnerable. In 'Cathy Queen of Cats' Esperanza's gullibility is obvious when Cathy tells Esperanza that "...[her] father will have to fly to France one day and find her...cousin...and inherit the family house. How do I know this is so? She told me so.". Another error in trusting others is that Esperanza is susceptible to betrayal. In 'Red Clowns' Esperanza is betrayed by Sally because Sally told Esperanza that the circus would be a fun experience, but instead she was raped. Esperanza blames Sally, the magazines, and the movies for lying to her about the circus. Esperanza is a very idealistic person. She assumes everything is pretty and fun, but when she finds out the acrimonious reality of life she becomes disappointed and

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Still Esperanza does not get what is going on at this point. She is still so naïve and innocent. Sometimes the reader forgets how young she actually is because of the things she is going through at such a young age. Her mind and her decisions are moving at a faster pace, but she is still so blind to the world.

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The role of Esperanza’s family is being annoying, yet supportive to her. She refuses that she doesn’t belong in that family, even though she deeply knows she does and loves them for it. Esperanza thinks her parents have too much hope, hates going to her Aunt’s apartment, her great-grandmother is a good kind of wild, her brothers are immature because of the whole “cooties” rule, and that she is a balloon tied to anchor when being with Nenny. Esperanza thinks Nenny is a drag because on page three, she says,” Nenny is too young to be my friend. She's just my sister and that was not my fault.

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Esperanza’s environment shifts her identity from being an insecure child to a confident, mature young adult who realizes the decisions that adults must make. Esperanza’s response to her environment reveals an insecurity about herself early in the story. In one of Esperanza’s experiences, she finds herself ashamed

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The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.

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Esperanza’s interest is writing poem, appears in many of the chapters where it explains a way of bonding with her community by sharing poems with one another. Because Esperanza has become a writer her observations strengthen throughout the novel. One example of how she matures through writing is in the beginning of the book she told stories that were obviously meant for a younger audiences but through the middle of the book she started to use more observation based upon what she saw which helped develop the story more for the reader. This change shows that she is becoming an artist, and also that she is starting to distance herself from her community, since she focuses more on capturing experiences than living through them, she starts to further her self from interaction and focuses more on observation of the people around her. By the end of The House on Mango Street, she knows that she underwent a huge transformation and her relationship with mango st is starting to weaken.

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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.

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When upstairs, she starts crying while having a conversation with the nun, saying “I always cry when the nuns yell at me, even if they’re not yelling.” This is yet another example of Esperanza’s shyness and social awkwardness. Lastly, after being told that she can eat at canteen for the day, she cries and eats her rice sandwich alone. Esperanza is also physically weak and malnourished.

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For Esperanza, her house isn’t just a house – it’s a reflection of her identity. Deep in her heart Esperanza longs for a house. A house

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“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.

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Esperanza says that she will come back, she will come back for “the ones I left behind... the ones who cannot out”. (Cisneros 110). Esperanza is able to go through a change and accept who she is through her community and her family. She is able to use her situation to empower herself, and to be hopeful in her own

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The reaction to this small house affects her to dream of living in a house of her own (Cisneros 4). Esperanza isn’t all that wealthy; this is evident when they can’t afford lunch meats so she makes a rice Maggard 3 sandwich (Cisneros 44). Overall Esperanza learns to cope with her living situation just talking to people and she also works really hard in school and at home and eventually moves away. These three characters have proved to all be very unique and different.

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