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Imagery In The House On Mango Street

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Recommended: The house on mango street literary elements

Caitlin Liddle
March 22, 2017
English, period 6 HOMS essay
As young men and women mature, barriers will appear in their everyday lives. Discovering how to move around these obstacles is challenging. In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, various characters realize the struggle of breaking free from a trapped existence to move forward into independence. Using a variety of literary devices, Cisneros brings her readers on an adventure, showing them these hard encounters through motif and imagery.
Cisneros uses the motif of numerous colors to illustrate Esperanza’s emotions towards being perplexed in a non-positive place. For example, Cisneros uses the color yellow to portray negative situations. Lucy, Rachel, and Esperanza wear high …show more content…

Darius is someone who most don’t take seriously, but when he begins to speak about the sky, everyone listens. In the vignette Darius & the Clouds, “… today [Darius], pointed up because the world was full of clouds…” (33). Darius is staring up at the clouds because he wants to be free, and doesn’t know how to be. Darius is wondering what he could become, but doesn’t know how to achieve it. This also occurs in a vignette about Aunt Lupe. When Aunt Lupe passed away, “maybe the sky didn’t look […]. Maybe God was busy” (59). The motif of the sky is being mentioned as something that is safe, or represented as being free and on one’s own. Esperanza’s aunt was struggling in the way that she couldn’t be free that day, she couldn’t be self-sustaining. Although motif was a great way to demonstrate the theme, the use of imagery was also a great choice in literary …show more content…

Esperanza attempt multiple times to mature much faster than necessary making her feel as though she is stuck. Relying on the literary devices of motif and imagery, Sandra Cisneros, in her novella, The House on Mango Street, shows her audience Esperanza’s struggle to escape into independence. Cisneros encourages her readers to move past the hardships of growing up, despite the barriers in life.

Not only is Cisneros’ use of motif showing Esperanza, and her friends, in a tough situation, but also how she is now becoming confused about and growing

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