The House On Mango Street Identity Essay

In the book ‘The House on Mango Street,’ Sandra Cisneros illustrates several subtle literary allusions, which are mostly from fairy tales, and many of them are vignettes. In this book, the main character Esperanza reveals personal experiences through which the readers is able to determine what kind of person she is; her views on life, as well as how her poverty affects her view of life, and how her poverty currently affects her place in the world. In the story the vignettes show different aspects of Esperanza’s identity as it evolves and changes progressively throughout the novel. At the end, Esperanza has grown up and become more mature and stand on her own life. How hesitation and fear on Esperanza allow her to be very naive to others around

Esperanza life goes through puberty and sexually matures during the book. Most of Esperanza’s female friends are abused by their father or husbands, so she wants to escape a male-dominated society but at the same time she has to deal with her emerging sexuality. Though Esperanza is a young girl with low self-esteem, she is still very optimistic of one day having a house of her own, one she can be proud of. She decides to fight the war against man and be a woman that does not need a man to take care of her. She refuses herself nor or wait for a husband, and this reflected in her leaving the “table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate” (Cisneros 89). By doing this Esperanza is maintaining her own power and is challenging the cultural and social expectations one she is supposed to fulfill. She wants to create her own individuality by making the decision to not ‘lay neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain’ (Cisneros 88). Esperanza believes she is not like the typical Latina who grows up in a big city whose goal is to grow up to be a wife and mother. She does not want to fit the typical role instead she wants to become independent from the stereotypes that are imposed on her by Latino