The House On Mango Street Figurative Language Essay

Teenagers have always had a lot to say and all have their own unique perspective of the world. Esperanza, the main character of Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street, expresses many of her thoughts using figurative language. She lives following her Latino heritage, but still has her own interesting points. Cisneros uses the elements of personification, hyperboles, and similes to properly describe Esperanza’s perspective of her life. The use of personification shows the deeper view and meaning of things Esperanza senses in her life. Esperanza has a neighbor with a “tree, huge with fat arms” that she sees as a giant (Cisneros 22). The tree overshadows the neighborhood and houses families of squirrels. Esperanza compares the tree to her own house and dreams about if her house were as big as the squirrels’. One day Esperanza and her sister were visiting a resale store. They were exploring and a lot of the stuff there was old or poor quality. Esperanza even saw “couches that spin dust in the air when you punch them”(Cisneros 19). Some people would’ve seen the items in the store as antiques, but Esperanza just saw them as ragged. Esperanza, like most kids her age,

Personification deeply shows Esperanza’s perspective because it describes things she's in a stronger way. By her comparing something she sees as a person and not just object Cisneros shows that Esperanza has strong feelings about that item. Whenever Cisneros uses a hyperbole it's just Esperanza being an over dramatic teenager. This strengthens Cisneros writing because she gets more in character with Esperanza’s age. The use of similes by all the characters is Cisneros most common way of describing things. In conclusion Cisneros use of personification, hyperboles, and similes is to get more into character with the young, impressionable, teenaged,