The House on Mango Street Message
Not many of us can say that we have lived up to the expectations given to us and internally benefited from it. In the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza struggles with growing up with many expectations placed on her. She lives in a Latino neighborhood in Chicago with many neighbors who teach her important lessons. Overall, the story has a message that you should not rely on expectations and the author shows it by using the characterization of Esperanza and through figurative language. Throughout the book, Esperanza reflects on how she was told that one day she would have an amazing, beautiful house all to herself and her family. She wrote, “But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath” (4). This means that he took her parent’s word to heart and expected her next house to be the standard that they had created. Her expectations were too high with no support that they would be true. She was saddened to realise this and therefore felt ashamed. As a result, she realised that she should be
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She writes, “My home isn’t far but it’s not close either, and somehow I got it in my head one day to ask my mother to make me a sandwich and write a note to the principal so I could eat in the canteen too” (43). The canteen is the place where only the students who live too far from school go to eat. By saying this, she means that she would like to feel special and have privileges like some of the other kids. This quote is important because in her mind, she thought that having this privilege was a sigh of importance and fitting in. When her plan went wrong and she was yelled at, she realised that her expectations were way too high and that it was not a big