...The novel The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a young girl named Esperanza who lives in an all hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Esperanza is a girl who would like to live in a house of her own and live the life she want but she is anchored down by the constraints of society. The story captures the idea of how women are portrayed and their role in society. Relying on men seems like the only way to live for women. Throughout the novel, Esperanza begins to notice how women are treated by men. She notices how gender inequality is common in lives of those dealing with the injustice. Some women find that getting married at a young age is their way to freedom, others find that education is the key to their...
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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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...Comparative Essay: gender roles in The House on Mango Street and Annie John Question 3: To what extent do male and female literary characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in society? In this essay I will analyse to what extent the characters in the novels The House on Mango Street (text A), by Sandra Cisneros, and Annie John (text B), by Jamaica Kincaid, reflect the role of men and women in society. These two novels criticise patriarchal societies, where “women are taught to think as men, identify with a male point of view and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values…” . In both of them, there are clear examples of chauvinism, which conditions the lives of Esperanza Cordero, a “Chicana” who lives in a Latin neighbourhood in the USA called Mango Street; and Annie John, who passes her childhood and part of her adolescence in Antigua, an island in the Caribbean which until 1981 was a British colony. In the following paragraphs, I will describe and analyse diverse illustrations of patriarchal society seen in both novels. These examples will be used to explain male and female roles in this kind of society. Firstly, both societies are more permissive with men than with women. In this way, males are allowed to act freely, while women are constantly being judged for their actions. In text A, we can notice Rosa Vargas’s situation. As the text says, “she is the only one against so many […] [and] cries everyday for the man who left without even...
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...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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...The 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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...life, women are pressured to be someone that they are not. They are put in situations that force them to chose a path of life. In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is forced to think and hope about the future, and leaving Mango Street, because she is surrounded by women like her who are pushing her to become an adult. The first example in the book is Cathy. By Cathy leaving the neighborhood, she makes Esperanza realize how much the neighborhood is changing. And, being fortunate enough that her and her family can leave, in a sense makes Esperanza want to leave even more. The second claim is Marin. Marin came to Mango Street to live with her aunt and uncle, but she really wants to go back to Puerto Rico to marry her boyfriend. Another example of someone wanting to leave Mango Street. She wants to leave, get married, and get a job – she is another role model for Esperanza showing her that she needs to start living like an adult. Alicia, a girl just like Esperanza, already has to take care of her own children. When Esperanza sees this, she wants to leave Mango Street more than ever. Although there are plenty reasons and examples to show Esperanza why she needs to leave Mango Street and have a better life, when Esperanza goes to Elenita to read her future, she tells her that home is in her heart and that she will probably never leave Mango Street for the rest of her life, but Esperanza does not want to hear that, she wants to hear that she will leave Mango Street someday...
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...“She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow” (Cisneros 10). This quote is a very compelling line from the novella The House On Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros. Sandra Cisneros writes about a young girl, Esperanza, who is a typical young girl, at some moments an adult and at some a child. Except,this child can exhibit adult perception. Throughout the story, Esperanza meets all kinds of women who in the end change her perspective of the world. Esperanza is determined not to become a women sitting by a window, like the rest of her neighborhood. However, Esperanza understands that when she departs from Mango Street, she will continue to protect the women in her neighborhood. Sandra Cisneros...
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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 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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...Herrera-Sobek, María. "On the House on Mango Street." Critical Insights: The House on Mango Street, Salem Press, Oct. 2010, pp. 3-8. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=57353698&site=lrc-live. Maria Herrera- Sobek received a Ph.D. in hispanic language and taught at Harvard and Stanford University. She is a associate vice chancellor for diversity, equality, and academic policy and a professor of Chicana/o studies at University of California. The House on Mango Street was published in 1984. The book blew up literature for Chicana/ Latina authors in the 1980s, acknowledging other writers such as Ana Castillo, Helena Maria Viramontes, Julia Alvarez, and many more. The triumph of The House on Mango Street stayed relevant...
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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 The House on Mango Street portrays a young Latina, Esperanza Cordero, dreams, hopes, and plans for the future. This coming-of-age novel has her growing up in Chicago with other Chicanos. But she is determined to do better for herself and her family. At the beginning of the book Esperanza is ashamed of the house she has. When people look at it she feels embarrassed that it is the place that she calls home. She wishes that she could live in a "real" house, one that she would be proud of. The house that her parents promised her with a green yard, real stairs, and running water with pipes that worked. She dislikes the house on Mango Street because of its sad appearance and cramped quarters are completely contrary to the idealistic home she always wanted. "I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go."I totally understand her feelings. I was embarrassed by my neighborhood. I would tell people I lived in the “ghetto”. My mother would get mad because it wasn’t true. We lived in a very nice two-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nowadays, people would kill to live in that location. At the end of the story, Esperanza knows she is going to leave The House on Mango Street, but she also realizes that she is going to come back because it did play a huge role in her childhood and...
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...feminist Sandra Cisneros has become widely read and known. Cisneros blurs lines between genres, calling her fiction, often vignettes rather than structured narratives, "lazy poems" ("Do You Know Me?" 79). Her Bildungsroman, The House on Mango Street, is read both as a young adult novel and as a work of adult fiction, and her most recent book of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), includes prose poems similar to those in Mango Street [The House on Mango Street], and longer works. Most of her fiction is composed as first-person narratives told to us by the central protagonist. She speaks for people like herself or whom she has known--Mexican and Chicana girls and women who grew up "on the borderlands." According to Cisneros, "If I were asked what it is I write about, I would have to say I write about those ghosts inside that haunt me" ("Ghosts and Voices" 73). Part of those ghosts are the myths and legends of the borderlands, which can hold women back in their quests for self-identity, or, when creatively adapted, can offer possibilities for constructing new cultural motifs. In The House on Mango Street, like Cisneros's childhood home, located in Chicago's barrio, the protagonist Esperanza says, "Mexicans don't like their women strong" (10). One could say that all of Cisneros's female characters either struggle to be strong and succeed, thus transcending culturally dictated gender roles, or are defeated in their struggle (Lewis 69). The fact that they...
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...In “The House on Mango Street”, Esperanza reveals personal experiences through which the reader is able to determine what kind of person she is and how she views herself. Esperanza is a young courageous, strong willed, Mexican- American girl that lives on Mango Street. Esperanza describes her sexual identity through her coming of age and how poverty affects her place in the world. She begins to feel the limitations imposed by her environment. She possesses the courage and initiative to reach beyond her neighborhood to achieve better things. Esperanza is similar but different from the other major female characters throughout the novella. The vignettes show different aspects of Esperanza’s life as it evolves and changes throughout “The House on Mango Street.” In the novella, Sally is a young girl who Esperanza befriends when she moved to Mango Street. Esperanza and Sally are the same age but Sally is more sexually bold. Sally opens up a new world to Esperanza who finds newfound sexual awareness in her friendship with the sexually adventurous Sally. From the novella it quotes “She does not like to get her stockings dirty, and she plays a more grown-up game by talking to the boys.” Esperanza’s awareness of her...
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...from The 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...
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