...Looking at the first few pages this quote really captivated my attention. If you were to rapidly read it, there would be no meaning but when you seek deeper, there is. This long quote mostly describes the perfect house Esperanza’s family dreams of living in one day. Although the description is not the actual setting of the book it builds imagery for the reader. The words she chooses to describe the house illustrates the splendid neighborhood with all the big houses looking similar and where all the neighbors get along. It’s those types of houses people can only dream about. The choice of house compared to her old houses allows me to infer that her family went through some hard times. The mood of the story seems to be hopeful. I say this because...
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...House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a fictional novel about a twelve year old girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in a poor Latino neighborhood in Illinois, on Mango Street. Esperanza dislikes and is ashamed of her house on Mango Street because it represents her family’s poverty. During this time, in the 1980s, all women’s freedoms are restricted and controlled by the men. In her neighborhood, most women are restrained by their fathers or husbands, leading them to wait for someone to change the present society and let women be free. However, Esperanza is different from all of the women and strives to be independent of her poverty and men. Esperanza tells the story about her struggling to live in her neighborhood on Mango Street...
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...House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.” • The except “The Three Sisters” is chapter 41 from the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros published in 1984. • The chapter starts of by talking about three sisters, aunts, and they are las comadres and that is a Spanish term given to Godmother, ‘one with laughter like tin and on with eyes of a cat and one with hands like porcelain’. This gave a thought of maybe witches and further research of the novel/chapter reveals that they are representations of the “three fates” of ancient mythology and these are women who decide, death, birth and lengths of lives. • Lucy and Rachel’s baby sister died, and there was wake or a viewing that happened in their home, ‘anybody who had ever wondered what color the walls were came and came to look at that little thumb of a human in a box like candy’. • Esperanza then makes a wishes and the sister who had ‘marble hands’ called her over to tell her something. o “When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are. … You must remember to come back. For the ones who cannot leave as easily as you.” • “The story approaches the fantastical here (in Esperanza’s point of view), as the sisters seem to read Esperanza’s mind and predict her future. They recognize that Esperanza is already strong enough to leave Mango Street, but they...
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...Tiffany Scott English 1020 Dr. Hall 5/10/2015 The House on Mango Street The house on Mango Street was based on the life of a little girl named Sandra Cisneros. She wrote the book based on her life growing up. She was born in Chicago in 1954 where she had six brothers and was the only daughter. Growing up, her mother and father moved Cisneros and her brother around a lot. “Because we moved so much, and always in neighborhoods that appeared like France after World War II, empty lots and burned out buildings, I retreated inside myself” Cisneros said when explaining all her moves as painful experiences. She found a way to deal with her life by writing. This led her to writing the book, The House on Mango Street. As the story began the writer explained why she had her name. That girl’s name was Esperanza. She was named after her great-grandma. She never knew her great-grandma but she would have really like to have known her. She never liked her named but it did have some meaning to it. Other than it being the name of her great-grandma it also means hope in English and sadness in Spanish. She then explained how they didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that they lived on Loomis and before that they lived on Keeler Street. But even before that they lived on Paulina Street and that’s all she can remember. This book is written in a very different manner, it seems a lot like a personal diary. The technique of the book is according to a story told from a girl's point of view...
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...The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, centers on Esperanza struggling to define herself in a way that will differentiate others she observes on Mango Street. Esperanza’s observations of the women of Mango Street, as they are all trapped in some way or another, is what drives Esperanza to want to be independent. Throughout the book Esperanza struggles with the idea of self-identification and differentiating herself from those in her family and neighborhood. Esperanza's first defining moment is when she decides to rename herself. She claims the name ZeZe the X and wishes she could shed her name which belonged to her great-grandmother. She believes her name carries too much baggage due to her great-grandmother being forced to marry...
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...In the coming of age story by Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street, covers a year in the life of a 12 year old girl named Esperanza. This novel, a series of vignettes, explores the life of a young girl in a poor Latino neighborhood in Chicago. Esperanza is destined to escape the run down, crowded home on Mango Street one day. She yearns for freedom, money, safety, friendships, boyfriends, and most importantly a nice home of her own. This is a story of a young girl’s struggle to find her own identity, conveyed through a vast array of complex themes. How do you express yourself as a native Spanish speaker in an English speaking world? “No speak English,” “No habla Español.” How do you eat, how do you get directions, make friends, succeed in school, or scream for help? In The House on Mango Street, the characters feel suffocated at times from their powerlessness over an alien language. They are lowered into the pit of society. They become prisoners...
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...Novel “The House on Mango Street,” takes the one on a journey through the eyes of a young girl named Esperanza. Initially, Esperanza appears to be an unreliable narrator because of the characters oblivious actions and the authors writing style and use of vignettes. However, the concise and brief approach gives the story more depth and allows one to become immersed in the story. The novel becomes animated with Cisneros less is more approach; the imagination springs alive with the minimal details. Cisneros emphasis is the fact that Esperanza’s perception changes throughout the story. Esperanza is on a pursuit to find herself and her true identity as she becomes a woman. In the story, the author explains how Esperanza feels that she is being held back by her social standing. Cisneros shows that Esperanza’s families’ social status is at a disadvantage and that she fits the stereotypical Chicana profile. Cisneros highlighted this by Esperanza’s family and their poverty. Patriarchal standards are also present in the story and tells how women in her community are held back because of this. The story expresses how Esperanza develops and overcomes her identity issues; Esperanza achieves this by learning about the community she belongs to. Moreover, by Esperanza focusing on the bigger picture, which is how to overcome the expectations that have been assumed to her. The narrator feels as if she does not belong to the community, and she dreams of leaving Mango Street. However, the experiences...
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...Name someone who doesn’t have an identity. It is not possible because everybody has an identity and everybody’s identity is completely unique to who they are. Identity is what shapes people and it can be anything from looks to traits. The House On Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is about a girl named Esperanza and her journey through life. Esperanza desperately wants to move off the street she lives on and in doing so she realizes many things about herself as well as who she is as a person. Identity is the most important theme in the novel because Esperanza’s identity change s, identity shapes who she is, and Esperanza discovers her cultural identity. The first reason why identity is the most important theme is because Esperanza’s identity changes. Alicia states, “ Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you will come back too,” (Page 107). Esperanza responds with, “ Not me,” (Page...
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.... Critical, yet ambitious and hopeful is the tone. It‘s impossible to ignore the critical lens through which the author portrays many of the social ills in this book. Men beat their daughters and wives. An immigrant is allowed to bleed to death in the hospital because the surgeon doesn‘t bother to show up. The wealthy are unable or unwilling to see the poverty and crime that has taken over a poor neighborhood in their city. 2. the narrator’s name, Esperanza, for the first time. Esperanza muses on the meanings of her name, but she does so in a random, nonsensical way that we are not meant to take seriously. 3. The tone of the last paragraph is accepting. Throughout the book, Esperanza has not wanted to belong. In the end and through help...
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...HE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET BY SANDRA CISNEROS SHORT PLOT / CHAPTER SUMMARY (Synopsis) The story is told by Esperanza, and begins when she first moves to Mango Street, a poor, Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. Esperanza says that she has lived in many different places. She implies that she is close to her family, and describes their interactions and even their hair. She tells us she does not like her name, because it is too long and because it was her grandmother’s name. Her grandmother did not want to get married, but was forced to by Esperanza’s grandfather. Slowly, Esperanza begins to meet people in the neighborhood. She meets Cathy, a stuck-up girl, and Lucy and Rachel, who live across the street. Sisters, these two will become Esperanza’s best friends on Mango Street. They are loud and sassy, just the opposite of Esperanza, but this is what she likes about them. Esperanza talks about her younger sister, Nenny, to whom she feels close in a strange way, even though sometimes they annoy each other. For example, when they visit a used furniture store and the owner plays a music box with music so beautiful Esperanza begins to cry, Nenny naively tries to buy the box. The man says it is not for sale, and Esperanza is embarrassed by her sister. Esperanza describes other people from the neighborhood. Meme Ortiz has a dog that is big and clumsy, just like him. Louie’s cousin got arrested for stealing a car. Marin is waiting for some rich man to find her and take her away from...
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...The House On Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, follows a young girl named Esperanza through her coming of age. The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, written by Sherman Alexie, also follows their young protagonist, Junior, throughout his coming of age. The setting, conflict, and characterization of both novels intertwine and build up one another. The final picture created in each book, once these three aspects come together, have little differences; and overall leave the reader with a similar take away. Mango Street, the setting of The House On Mango Street is a poor neighborhood. The setting of The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian, is an indian reservation, which is also impoverished. The state of poverty in this indian reservation is shown when the author writes, “My school and my tribe are so poor and sad that we have to study from the same dang books our parents studied from. That is absolutely the saddest thing in the world.” (Alexie 31). In the quote the author is describing the moment Junior opened up his geometry book and saw his mother’s name written on the cover. The fact that both settings are poor expose...
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...Simon Adelle UCOR 102 Paper 3 Professor Marcum Making It in A Man’s World April 29, 2013 “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros exposes the life of the main character, Esperanza, for one year as she struggles with trying to find her place in America as a Chicana young girl while also coming of age. The novel starts the day Esperanza and her family of six move into a house on Mango Street, and immediately she expresses her antipathy for not only the house, but also for the area in which they move into and the people around who judge them because of their ethnicity. The story is not told in the traditional format of a continuous story divided into chapters, but rather Cisneros uses forty-four vignettes to allow for the reader to fully understand why Esperanza has the struggles that she has. Along with Cisneros’ illustrating Esperanza’s looking for her identity through images of Esperanza’s thoughts and female obedience, symbolism of violence, legs, the Statue for Liberty, and Nenny, and diction of Spanish words, not using quotation marks, and a maturing tone, she also uses these them to permeate Esperanza’s desperation to leave Mango Street throughout the whole novel. Cisneros’ use of vignettes highlights important moments in Esperanza’s life that emphasize how she develops over the course of a year. Cisneros uses the brevity of the vignettes to enhance the imagery to give the most vivid image through her limited amount of words for...
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...The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is full of excellent literary techniques, a prime example of this is the chapter My Name. The first example of this is Cisneros use of juxtaposition. While discussing her great-grandmother’s attitude and their similarities, which include their Chinese zodiac sign, Esperanza compares Chinese and Mexican culture, “the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.” The author does this to make the passage more interesting and easier for the reader to understand. This is highly effective because it shows the negative attitude towards women that Esperanza relates to. The second instance of the use of literary techniques is the use of symbolism. Esperanza’s great-grandmother was stuck in an unhappy marriage and “She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.” This use of symbolism makes the work much more interesting than if she had just that her...
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...Name Removed English September 11, 2014 The Loss of Innocence in “Monkey Garden” In the chapter, “Monkey Garden,” from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the garden symbolizes the archetypal Garden of Eden from Genesis. Similar to Adam and Eve eating from the forbidden tree, Esperanza loses her innocence in this mystical backyard. As an under-privileged child on Mango Street, Esperanza witnessed adult problems that most children her age would never dream of, especially the maltreatment of women. In this fantastical children’s garden, the kids escaped their real-life problems in search of the lost treasures the garden holds. The rich imagery Esperanza weaves into her description shows the evasion of her problems: “There were sunflowers big as flowers on Mars and thick cockscombs bleeding the deep red fringe of theatre curtains.” The images of Mars and the theatre imply entering a fictional or distant world without everyday challenges. In addition, the kids on Mango fabricate rumors that align the Monkey Garden with the Garden of Eden, “Somebody started the lie that the monkey garden had been there before anything.” Through her escape into fantasy, Esperanza kept her innocence. Through it, she stayed a child until the next day. Despite the seemingly irrevocable purity of the Monkey Garden, Sally’s kissing game with the boys not only defiles the image of the Monkey Garden but also substantiates the gender inequalities...
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...An example is “In the meantime, they'll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in” this is towards to people like Cathy that make the stereotype seem true. Esperanza and her family are nothing like the stereotype but still are judged because of it. A Latino in the novel is called two different names one in English and one in Spanish to seem like less of foreigners and to make people judge him less. The quotes is” Meme Ortiz moved into Cathy's house after her family moved away. His name isn't really Meme. His name is Juan. But when we asked him what his name was he said Meme, and that's what everybody calls him except his mother" they have a dual identity to try and fit in with nonlatinos because they fear of being judged or...
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