The House on Mango Street The House on Mango Street is a story with a collection of different identities. The main character Esperanza is seeking to find her true identity. She experiences many opportunities throughout her childhood. She remains on Mango Street throughout the story but it’s confident that Mango Street will not be her permanent home. The revelation of her identity is revealed on Mango Street.
House on Mango Street The novel House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, portrays a coming of age theme as the main character, Esperanza Cordero, matures from a young girl to a woman. As her family grows, Esperanza moves often from apartment to different houses until she ends up on Mango Street. These stories illustrate typical challenges that Esperanza faces within her neighborhood where unsupervised kids commit crimes and even endure abuse. The Mexican life style seems a stereotype of poor neighborhoods, trouble some kids, and uneducated women ending up as stay-at-home housewives of taking care of the kids and the household needs. These stories illustrate the struggles of the residents of Mango Street who want a better lifestyle.
In the book, Esparanza grows up in a mostly low-income area. Her family always promised that one day they would move into a nice home like the ones in the movies. The house Esparanza grows up in is the house on Mango Street. It is cramped, dingy, and the opposite of that on television. As Esparanza is growing up all she wants are friends so she asks her neighbor Cindy to be her friend.
The House on Mango Street goes through the life of Esperanza, the narrator. The twelve year old Spanish girl moves out of the family's old broken down apartment and into the upgraded one bedroom, one bathroom house. She does not have a hard time realizing that her new home is not what she wanted nor expected. Esperanza battles to find herself part of Mango Street. In about one year, Esperanza matures mentally and physically and knows that she does not want to stay in the poor neighborhood in Chicago on Mango Street.
This girl is young, who has seen her family move in different occasions. She doesn’t have much and wonders why her mother tells her they will move soon from their small apartment, if she knows they will be there for awhile. She has noticed that in the barrio she is now living in, boys and girls don’t communicate outside from their homes, and she has questioned herself to why her name has two different meanings. She despises the way her name is said in english . The only woman who shares her name is her grandmother, whom she’s never met, but compares her to a wild horse.
In-between Innocence In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza is a young teenage girl who talks about her growing up in a place that she does not really like. One of the reasons why she does not seem to like the place in which she lives in is due to her loss of innocence. Esperanza experiences several situations that make her realize that life is not all spring and blossom, in other words life is not perfect. Some situations she goes through have a greater impact in her life than other situations that don’t really affect her daily life. Many remarkable experiences that we go through can change our life and way of thinking, sometimes this being for the good and sometimes for the bad.
The reader can tell that Esperanza wants to become a writer when the book says ‘One day I will pack my books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango.’ Another goal the two have in common is to fit in. Cisneros didn’t fit in to her family because she was the only girl and had six brothers. She said that her dad always said ‘I have seven sons’ wishing he actually did. Esperanza doesn’t fit in because the only friend she has is her little sister Nenny who she doesn’t even consider her friend because she is too young.
Esperanza idolizes a house because of what her parents have told it would be like to live in one. A house is a home free of landlords, has its own stairs and 3 bathrooms. At the beginning of the book Esperanza expresses how she covets for a house of her own. Esperanza talks about how life would be with a house she could brag about because of her experiences with a nun asking where she lives and she is too embarrassed when she tells him. She doesn't want that feeling and that's why she so desperately wants to move into a nicer house.She is an immature girl at first but later on throughout the novel she realizes the importance of family and heritage and completely changes her views on life.
In the Sandra Cisneros story’ The House on Mango Street” The theme revolved around poverty and the struggles a little girl and her family of six had to endure. At the beginning they were always on the move “We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t even remember.” (318). In “The House On Mango Street” the little girl sounds sort of happy at the end even though they had even gone through a long journey to get to where they are now. But although the family seems happy at the house on Mango Street It also seems its not the best house as the little girl describes.” It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you would think they were holding their breath” (319).
Esperanza has always aspired to find a way to move away from Mango Street and have a life of her own, free from the troubles of the tough life that she is living. She has seen other women and girls on her street try to get away from their lives using other methods, such as waiting for someone to whisk them away from their lives or to marry into a family or person who lives away to get out of the life they’re living in. Both of them don’t really get anywhere and end up with worse lives than in the first place. Esperanza actually has a major benefit compared to the other kids in her neighborhood; her parents are kind and loving and are willing to do whatever it takes, unlike Sally’s, to give their children a better life than the one that they are living in at the moment. Her mom tells her how she should have gone to school and that Esperanza should study hard in order to fulfill her dream of becoming whoever she wants to be and also give her parents the peace of mind that they are looking for in knowing that they gave their child a better life.
Benji Essay The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros demonstrates the growth of Esperanza, not just as an older sister but as a person. This book shows her life struggles and what she has had to go through to enter life as an adult. Esperanza lives without a positive female role model, but will realize that she does not need anyone but herself. Esperanza goes through troubling challenges on a day to day basis and it has affected her maturity level drastically. Esperanza has not acknowledged the hard work life requires for great opportunities to appear.
Esperanza and Alicia views In the book the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, two characters Alicia and Esperanza both believed that education and writing is a way to a better life. Both Alicia and Esperanza views were shown frequently in this book. Through these and other characters, Cisneros suggests that education offers a kind of freedom. Education plays a big role in both Alicia and Esperanza life. Esperanza likes to make up stories as she wash dishes, walk up stairs, and walk to school ECT.
The House on Mango Street Esperanza describes how her family came to live at the house on Mango Street. A house is what unites a family. This family sounds a little away from each other. I think that what she really wants a place for them all to live in. even though she actually describes the house because she wants the house, I think it’s to unite them to each other.
Anonymous Mrs.Anonymous English 101 Essay #1 1 Oct. 2012 Vignette Essay As a young girl there are many assumptions and unanswered questions about growing up and what it means to be a woman. In “The House On Mango Street”, the author Sandra Cisneros teaches many lessons throughout her novel including one in particular. In her vignette “Hips”, Esperanza, Nenny, Rachel, and Lucy explain to each other what it means to have hips. In “Hips”, Cisneros shows the innocence of young girls and establishes the relationship between Esperanza and Nenny which demonstrates her view of where a woman’s place is in society. The setting of this vignette describes Esperanza, Nenny, Rachel, and Lucy playing double-dutch together.
June 16, 2014 Cultural Book Report The book that I choose to read was “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros and it is a perfect book that covers many of the topics in class. The story is about a Latina girl named Esperanza Cordero who tells her story about growing up in a poor urban neighborhood. She tells the story of other people in her neighborhood and the struggles they faced along with her own. Esperanza is ashamed of her life and her families poverty situation and in many occasions she tries to hide the fact that she is poor, like saying she lived in another house. Puberty and being a women also caused a feeling of shame for Esperanza especially when she was abused by males in two experiences, one in which an old man forcefully kissed here and the other in which a group of boys raped her.
Sadly Esperanza and her family are also greatly affected by poverty. However while Esperanza recognizes poverty as a major obstacle, she learns that it doesn't need to sideline her dreams . In the first vignette the readers can see that Esperanza is in fact poor. We can see this by how Esperanza states that “The house on Mango Street is ours” showing that this is the first time that her family has ever owned their own home (3). Also the readers can see that how she describes her dream house proves that she is poor “but stairs inside like the houses on T.V.” (4).
ENGL 1302-3 8 November 2011 Growing into a Woman The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, focuses on a preadolescent Mexican American girl, Esperanza, living in the United States. In forty-four literary sketches, Cisneros recounts the complex experiences of being young, poor, female, and Chicano in America. She writes of the trials and tribulations of moving from one poor district of Chicago to the next and about her experiences of life after her parents finally purchase a house. The reader is allowed to participate in the feelings, attitudes, and the obstacles Esperanza endures as she reaches realizations about isolation in society, her identity and existence as a maturing adolescent, and the pursuit of her hopes and dreams. In the book, one of prevalent themes is society and class and how it impacts not only Esperanza but the people she knows in the community.
House on Mango Street Final Essay Once Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams” This quote portrays to Esperanza’s life because she made it through the challenging obstacles in her life by believing in her dreams. In the novella House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is the narrative that is seen through the eyes of Esperanza Cordero, an adolescent girl coming of age. She starts of as an insecure twelve year old girl who is quite selfish but in the end Esperanza finally matures and gains more confidence within herself. Throughout the novella her neighbors uncover forces that pull Esperanza to stay rooted to her cultural traditions, and those who compel her to pursue a better way of life outside of the barrio (neighborhood). Esperanza Cordero goes from being an insecure girl to being a young woman seeking her own independence.
A life where they don’t have to worry about moving from place to place never able to keep a friend. “The House On Mango Street” is a book about a child who does not have that much in life. It is about a child who is born into a life without all those luxuries. Sandra Cisneros’s novel is based off of her actual life experiences as a child but, shown through the eyes of a fictional character named Esperanza. Although having dozens of minor themes, the book “The House On Mango Street” also has two major themes.
However, Cisneros describes the character Esperanza as being different. Although Esperanza is born and raised in the same culture as the women around her, she refuses to accept the society that surrounds her. She is determined to someday remove herself from the oppressive community she lives in. Esperanza is mentally strong and has a talent for telling stories; through her inspirational stories she gives back to the women who raised her by showing them that they can be independent from men and live their own lives. The Latino women and girls in the novel are extremely concerned about their appearances, because they feel that if they are not attractive then they will not be noticed by men.