The House On Mango Street Identity Essay

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a realistic fiction, bildungsroman novel that tells the story of twelve year old girl Esperanza growing up in the Hispanic neighborhood of Chicago. Esperanza struggles with her identity and self-expression due to the given circumstances in her life. Since it’s the 1960s, one of recurring themes of the book is racism which makes Esperanza feel poorly about her heritage. Additionally, her family is relatively poor which affects Esperanza’s ability for self-expression, which she secretly resents her family for. In “The House on Mango Street” Esperanza struggles with defining and exploring her identity while living in an impoverished community.
Throughout the book, Esperanza struggles with being proud

She sees other women in her life fall short of their potential, like her mother, who was smart and multifaceted, but stopped her education because she didn’t like her appearance. She sees her neighbor Alisha, who has to do twice as much work because she’s a woman. While Alisha is ambitious enough to pursue a college education, she still has to stay up, cook for her siblings, and do all the housework because her father refuses to do so. Cisneros writes, “...but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain…I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate” (88-89). Esperanza refuses to be one of the many women who don’t get the chance to excel. She starts her own war, where she will act as a man and not be treated as

One of her insecurities is how thin she is, another one of insecurities, or something she feels shameful about is where she lives. Cisneros writes, “They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here” (74). Esperanza directly states the idea that the trees represent her. The trees are thin and pointy, sticking out all over the place. Later in the vignette, Cisneros writes that “...when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees” (75). The trees give her hope because they show that despite their poor circumstances, they still grow. Esperanza discusses multiple times that she is going to get out of Mango Street, and live in a house that’s nicer and bigger. Like the trees, she is forced to grow in “concrete,” which for Esperanza is her poor neighborhood that holds her back from flourishing. But the trees still grow, like how she will still