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Sandra Cisneros Barbie-Q

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“Barbie-Q” was a short story written by Sandra Cisneros about two little girls and their imagination when they play with their Barbies. Cisneros shows a glance of poverty from the point of view of the young girls. We can portray the struggle in which people who live in third world countries experience and how different their lifestyles are. By showing us a preview of what it’s like to live in poor conditions, the author is trying to illustrate that we need to be appreciative of what we have as people in a first world countries. Just because we don’t necessarily see the other side of the fence, doesn’t mean it does not exist. Cisneros uses characterization and imagery to develop the story.

Cisneros starts off the short story by putting the …show more content…

Cisneros grew up moving between Mexico and America and never allowing her to settle and fully stick to a culture. She also grew up with six brothers making her feel isolated and alone for most of her childhood. This caused Cisneros to subtly include feminism in most of her writings. Cisneros and her family grew up in poverty which she also tends to include in her texts just like Barbie-Q. This short story looks like it imitates her childhood and how she wasn’t very privileged as a child. She often makes references to the family of the girls not being able to afford toys for them, “But that’s all we can afford, besides one extra outfit a piece” (Cisneros, 1991, p.447). This represents her growing up as a kid and how she wasn’t able to get the things she wanted because of her family’s financial situation. Besides not having much toys to play with, she didn't really play with her siblings either because they didn't include her. But, in the story there are two little girls instead of one. It seems like shes trying to picture a lifestyle that she would rather live in that would've been more suitable and less lonely for her. She knew growing up poor wasn't something she could control or to change during her childhood, but another sister would have made it better. Cisneros was surrounded by six brothers which led her to be excluded from activities because she was a girl. This would be the ignition of the feminism found in her

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Sandra Cisneros is trying say that life is not fair and has dissapointment as you growing up much like how Esperanza feels about her house on mango street. Sandra is comparing herself with Esperanza in the book to refer her life. The Disappointment Cisneros feels is the same as what Esperanza feels in the book. Esperanza is Disappointed when she realizes how the canteen is not special. In page 76 she found out what the canteen was.

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Cisneros felt a split between her Mexican culture or the "old ways" and the American culture or "new ways". Cisneros describes this division by detailing her thoughts and actions when she was younger. Within the story she tells of her experience with the "old ways" and about the customs that her grandmother followed religiously. Cisneros also explains that she wasn't allowed in the church with her grandmother and wasn't allowed to walk the town, which accurately describes how she felt shunned from both sides of her ethnicity and her rejection from both

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Cisneros writes the narrative in this vignette as a back and forth response between the four girls. She uses

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In almost each of her poem Cisneros shows her energetic, crazy personality. One main topic her poems and personality brings light to the topic “Feminism.” For many years, women have been working hard in order to gain equality with man. Through her poems Cisneros 's has put a light to the things that women fear of saying based on the world 's ideology of a woman. She shows that women aren 't just emotional creatures and can be as wild and sexual as a man.

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In the book The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros is raising awareness of the racism and domestic abuse in society. In the text Esperanza is entering womanhood, a time of self-discovery and maturity in her life. Growing up in a poor community, she throughout the book expresses how she feels when she is discriminated because of her race. She also comments on other characters being victims of domestic abuse. A way Sandra Cisneros is raising awareness of racism in society is by dismissing the stereotypes they are addressed.

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Therefore, Sandra Cisneros is showing how Esperanzas experience is shaping her

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Cisneros emphasizes throughout the story how isolated her family made her feel. Her father would go around telling people, “I have seven sons” (45). Even though this was not meant to hurt her, these words still impacted her, it was very hard for her to deal with it.

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In this novel, Author Sandra Cisneros illustrates the idea that gender causes people to lock themselves into specified roles throughout their lives. This becomes clear to readers when Esperanza shows all of the different situations that men and women are put into. Gender roles are apparent within families. Cisneros describes Esperanzas grandmothers situation in the

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Sandra Cisneros, the author of the book The House on the Mango Street, conveys that girls or women do not have as much freedom as guys do, the girls or women are always ruled or controlled by someone mostly male, and they always have to be the one to follow the rules. As Esperanza grows up she observes many girls who are in the conditions that they are not supposed to be in. The girls have no freedom and they are always supposed to listen to the guy in the family. One observation Esperanza observes is that girls are controlled by men all the time and because of listening to men those girls are locked inside. For example as Esperanza says, “And then Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at” ( Cisneros # 79 ).

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The story tells the reader about how two girls, each owns a Barbie doll with their one outfit piece and they made a dress out of worn socks for the dolls. One Sunday, they both went to the flea market on Maxwell Street, where the dolls of the other characters in Barbie were sold with lower price as a big toy warehouse was destroyed by fire. They did not mind to buy the dolls at the flea market even though the dolls were flawed, soaked with water and smelled like ashes. Barbie is widely pictured as a successful girl, who is perfect in every way; with her beautiful face, a slim body, nice house, secured job and a handsome boyfriend which is the fancy of every girl. The story tells the reader of the expectancy for women to have this immaculate figure, ignoring the fact that each person has different body fat percentage and body mass index which may affect their sizes and weights.

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