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What Are The Similarities Between Genesis And The Monkey Garden

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The Monkey Garden is a significant place in Esperanza’s life. It is here that Esperanza finds herself trapped between the two worlds of child and adult, unsure about whether to stay childish or grow up. To the reader, it looks like Esperanza on the fence of an important decision that will change her life forever. Ironically, Cisneros's language in “The Monkey Garden” is similar to the language used in the Genesis. This similarity can be seen when both works describe the loss of innocence and both contain a tempter and tempted. When read through these lens, it seems that “The Monkey Garden’s” message is that the changing of age is inevitable. In both “The Monkey Garden” and the Genesis, there is a loss of innocence; in the “Monkey Garden” the …show more content…

In the Genesis, the serpent convinces Eve to eat the fruit by stating “You will not surely die [if you eat the fruit]” [5] This little encouragement is enough to convince Eve to eat it, showing that she was already longingly to eat the fruit, but did not have a good excuse to until the serpent’s statement. This eagerness to “eat the fruit” is shown in the Monkey Garden when Tito’s and his friends tempt Sally to kiss them. They do so by stealing her keys and demanding “A kiss for each one” [97]. “Sally pretended to be mad at first but she said yes” [96]. The fact that Sally only pretended to be mad shows that Sally quite willingly went to kiss the boys. Both descriptions of the tempter and tempted show that the tempter was not that big of an impact to the tempted; the tempted already wanted to “eat the fruit”, but only waited for an excuse to do so. The tempter and tempted show that the changing of age is inevitable. This is undeniable because in both gardens the tempted wanted to “eat the fruit” long before the tempter convinced them. Because of this, it can be suggested that even if both stories did not have a tempter, the tempted would still eventually eat the fruit after being unable to control their want. This would subsequently …show more content…

In the Genesis, the Garden of Eden is told as a place of eternal springtime, plenty of food, and everyone running around naked with no shame; basically, the Garden is “innocent”. In comparison, the kids on Mango Street, describe the Monkey Garden as “a wonderful thing to look at in the spring.” [95] and a place that was “Far away from where our mothers could find us” [95]. Rumors spread about how “the Monkey Garden had been there before anything.” [96]. Both descriptions of both gardens are very similar, both describing a pardise. (QUOTE ABOUT HOW ESPERANZA WANTED TO DIE IN THE GARDEN) However, after Eve and Adam ate the fruit, “the eyes of both of them were opened” [5] and they realized they were naked, destroying their innocence. Because of this, “the Lord God banished [Adam] from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.” [6] This fate is similar to Esperanza’s fate in the Monkey Garden. In the Monkey Garden, after Sally goes to kiss the boys, Esperanza realizes that “something wasn’t right” [97] about the situation. Esperanza, mortified by the realization and embarrassed, hid at the other end of the garden. She stated, “...the garden that had been such a good place to play didn’t seem mine...” [98]. Both of these descriptions show

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387 Words | 2 Pages

In the vignette, “The Monkey Garden,” Cisneros uses similes, personification, and juxtaposition to show how the garden quickly changes from a child’s playground to a place of haunting grownup memories. In the beginning, Cisneros uses similes to describe the carefree nature of the garden: “There were big green apples hard as knees. And everywhere the sleepy smell of rotting wood, damp earth, and dusty hollyhocks thick and perfumey like the blue-blonde hair of the dead" (Cisneros 95). Initially, Esperanza and the other children are young and naive and play in the garden without any worries. The garden is a place of childhood innocence and shows that although Esperanza wants desperately to grow up, she is still a child.

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883 Words | 4 Pages

Yes, absolutely. Also, I think adults are the general guidance for a child’s moral development. In “to kill a mockingbird”, Miss Maudie and Atticus are great role models for the children. For example, when Jem and Scout are discussing about Boo Radley, Miss Maudie tells them to never base someone on outside rumors and states that Boo always treated her nicely. Also, Atticus decides to defend a Negro which taught them about the division in their community and to follow what they believe is right.

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2214 Words | 9 Pages

The woman will go through pains and sorrow but despite that, her loyalty will be fixed on her husband. All her life, she would learn to be bound to her husband. How does this connect to eating the fruit? It goes beyond eating the fruit but shifting her belief from her husband, who is supposed to be her Lord, to believing the serpent. You remember the order of leadership described by Paul to the Corinthians?

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785 Words | 4 Pages

(Genesis 3:5-6). Eve’s interest in the fruit was piqued by Satan the serpent, and she gave the fruit to Adam, who also consumed the forbidden fruit. Comparably in Anthem, Equality 7-2521’s catalyst for his actions is his own curiosity. “We [Equality 7-2521] wish nothing, save to be alone and to learn, and to feel as if with each day our sight were growing sharper than the hawk’s and clearer than rock crystal” (Rand 36).

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556 Words | 3 Pages

Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden which was a place of youth and innocence, much like nature and the flower in the poem. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge. Eve ate the fruit from the tree, committing the first sin. Then Eve tempted Adam into eating the fruit also. In the poem, the Garden of Eden “sank to grief”.

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856 Words | 4 Pages

In this expressive chapter written by Cisneros, Esperanza is kicked out of the garden when “Sally says go home,” as a result of being told to leave, “she didn’t know why but she has to run away. [She] had to hide [herself] at the other end of the garden” (Cisneros 97). In correlation, the Garden of Eden contains banishment when “God banish[es] him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken” (Genesis). In a similar manner to the Garden of Eden, Cisneros uses banishment. In the story of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are banished from the garden due to their disobeying of God’s rules.

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654 Words | 3 Pages

In the book, The House On Mango Street, symbolism is evident by the way the author writes. The symbols are used to express the way a character feels or to connect one thing to another. One of these major symbols are trees. Esperanza looks at different trees throughout the book in chapters “Four Skinny Trees” and “Meme Ortiz”, and claims them being a reflection of her. Trees symbolize a feeling of not belonging, finding strength, persevering, and doing something for the foundation of the future.

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1115 Words | 5 Pages

In the book, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is portrayed as a young innocent girl that drastically changes over the course of the book. Esperanza is new to mango street and encounters many challenges but also positive experiences that she is able to take away from mango street. In order for Esperanza to transform as a human it was inevitable for her to face the struggles on mango street. As Esperanza matures throughout the novel she experiences three major developments that shape her future through the awakening of maturity, responsibility and her awakening of her interest in poetry.

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1117 Words | 5 Pages

Esperanza is often humiliated not only by where she lives, but also by her physical appearance, hence causing a restriction in her climb to a higher social class. Esperanza is frequently ashamed of her family’s broken-down house in an urban, poor

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1348 Words | 6 Pages

The main protagonist Esperanza, matures from a childish girl to a young confident woman through many critical and life changing events in the story. Ultimately, the author, Sandra Cisneros implements the symbols of confidence, the house on mango street and the metaphor of shoes to show how Esperanza develops into a more mature state. Sandra Cisneros

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1095 Words | 5 Pages

Not once, or twice, or ever again.” (Cisneros 105). One of the reasons for this is her meeting the three old ladies who came for Rachel’s sister’s funeral. There prophesy that Esperanza will leave Mango Street boosts her self-confidence. The narrator also says, “Before Keeler it was Paulina, but what I remember most is Mango Street, sad red house, the house I belong but do not belong to.”

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761 Words | 4 Pages

The story goes that God warns the people of the garden that they must not eat fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eve later persuaded by a serpent decides to take a bite out of the knowledgeable fruit. Later she shares the fruit with Adam filling both Adam and Eve with remorse and shame. God hears of their disobedience and curses both Adam and Eve since the fruit had made both of them impure. In

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In the short story “The Flowers”, Alice Walker sufficiently prepares the reader for the texts surprise ending while also displaying the gradual loss of Myop’s innocence. The author uses literary devices like imagery, setting, and diction to convey her overall theme of coming of age because of the awareness of society's behavior.     At the beguining of the story the author makes use of proper and necessary diction to create a euphoric and blissful aura. The character Myop “skipped lightly” while walker describes the harvests and how is causes “excited little tremors to run up her jaws.”. This is an introduction of the childlike innocence present in the main character.

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1242 Words | 5 Pages

Discipline is the practice of training children to obey rules, using punishment to correct disobedience; discipline is enforced by most parents. However in “The Veldt”, instead of George and Lydia disciplining their children Peter and Wendy, they pamper Peter and Wendy, which Bradbury suggests is a direct reason why Peter and Wendy become unruly and aggressive. Through characterization, foreshadowing, and symbolism, Bradbury displays that there can be grave consequences to not disciplining your child. Bradbury uses characterization to display that the kids become dependent on the nursery, they start seeing it as an actual person. When George is about to close the doors to the nursery, Peter freaks out and says with anger to the ceiling, “Don’t

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(18) ‘senses his life has run to seed’(5 ).He feels an urgent riptide drawing him far out, where caught in the hell of loneliness, he cries for help (4). And he confesses to his friend Janet: I’m young, employed, healthy, ambitious Sound solvent, self-made, self possessed. But all my symptoms are perinicious.

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