The House on Mango Street Essay

As Esperanza goes into detail,The more Esperanza describes her neighbors the more Esperanza struggles with her place in society and desires to leave her neighborhood.

Ever since that faithful day they moved onto Mango Street, Esperanza has always wanted more. At a young age, she recalls moving quite a bit, and never finding a place that screams home. Her new house on Mango Street is an improvement, yet it doesn’t satisfy her. It is small and red, with tiny windows, crumbling bricks, and everyone in her family has to share a bedroom. Esperanza remembers when a nun drove by her old home on Loomis and said “You live there”, in a quite disgusted manner. She recalls feeling sheepish, as she looked up at her raggedy house and longed for it to just vanish. At this point, Esperanza wrote

Esperanza is forever marked by the house and neighborhood she lives in. She wants to be like other kids who are allowed to eat their lunch at school instead of having to go home everyday. These students live father from the school than she does. Esperanza assumes these children live in better houses and neighborhoods. She is embarrassed by her house and angry that she must be identified by it. As said by Sister Superior, “I bet I can see your house from my window. Which one? Come here. Which one is your house?” The sister points to an ugly row of houses in the general direction of Esperanzas address.

This relates to the theme of the struggle for self definition, because at first Esperanza was under the impression she could change a man, but as she’s exposed to these horrible encounters she comes to the conclusion that boys and girls live in different worlds.

“Beautiful and Cruel” marks the beginning of Esperanza’s “own quiet war” against machismo (Hispanic culture powered by men). She refuses to neither tame herself nor wait for a husband, and this rebellion is reflected in her leaving the “table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros gives Esperanza a self-empowered voice and a desire for personal possessions, thing that she can call her own: Esperanza’s “power is her own (Cisneros 89).” Cisneros discusses two important themes: maintaining one’s own power and challenging the cultural and social expectations one is supposed to fulfill. Esperanza’s mission to create her own identity is manifest by her decision to not “lay (her) neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain (Cisneros 88).” Cisneros’ rough language and violent images of self-bondage reveal the contempt with which Esperanza views many of her peers whose only goal is to become a wife. To learn how to guard her power

On Mango Street, it’s nothing new for kids to jump off a building and end up killing themselves. Rape? That's no big deal it happens all the time. Not only is Mango street like this, but the majority of Southern Chicago is like this. Many people are forced to live in this type of environment because of their economic state. Many people like Esperanza hate the place they live and are desperate for a change. Esperanza knows that there is a little chance of change. Around her she sees people living their suffering lives and not their bright future they had planned. Looking at the people around her makes her want to leave Mango street and start a better life. She knows that if she stays in this neighborhood, she will have a dark future like

As a young girl Esperanza is asked one day where she lived by a nun from her school who happened to be walking by. Now before this moment Esperanza never really notice her living situation, all she knew is that her parents loved her and wanted her to go to school. When the nun rudely said “You live there” (Cinceros 5) and pointed at the shoddy apartment building, it is then Esperanza started to build a dream inside of her head because of the look on the nun’s face, unsatisfactory.

Women’s Escape into Misery Women’s need for male support and their husband’s constant degradation of them was a recurring theme in the book House on Mango Street. Many of Esperanza’s stories were about women’s dreams of marrying, the perfect husband and having the perfect family and home. Sally, Rafaela, and Minerva are women who gave me the impression of [damsel’s in distress].CLICHÉ, it’s ok though. It’s relevant They wished for a man to sweep them of their feet and rescue them from their present misery. These characters are inspiring and strong but they are unable to escape the repression of the surrounding environment. *Cisneros presents a rigid world in which they lived in, and left them no other hope but to get married.

Throughout the whole novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza has been affected by the poverty of inner city Mango Street. For example, poverty has affected her and her family, and Esperanza’s friends on Mango Street. In the book, Esperanza has some obstacles and emotional problems due to poverty,such as, people making her feel worse about the house than she already is. To conclude, Esperanza has been affected by the poverty of inner Mango Street and it challenges her views and desires throughout the novel. Esperanza is ashamed and disappointed of her family’s poverty.

It is located in a community where there are not many Latinos and Latinos are seen as foreign. This area where Esperanza lives is considered a barrio, which is a Spanish-speaking quarter of a town or city, especially one with a high poverty level. Throughout the book, she struggles with the shame and isolation she feels that comes with living in the barrio. She is seen as different to her classmates because of who she is and where she comes from. In some cases Esperanza also feels envy to those who have the dream house and dream life that she wants. Not the Mexican-American life she is stuck in. In one of the vignettes “Those Who Don’t,” symbolizes the “white” people who leave a neighborhood because Latino families move in or those who are too scared to be in the neighborhood because of the people in it. This chapter shows the racial prejudice Esperanza faces every day. Even though she knows she would be afraid in a foreign neighborhood from her own. She implies that fear depends on the lack of knowledge of the neighbors and the residents. Esperanza’s on going struggle to fit has a lot to do with where she lives. And the struggle and prejudices she experiences leads her to have a a dream, of which she owns, loves, and is proud of unlike the one she has

The House on Mango Street Essay There are millions of people in the world without a place to live. The people who do have a home should be happy. Although, some are greedy and want better homes. Esperanza lives in a house on Mango Street. She decides that she wants to have a real house that she can point to without without feeling ashamed.

-She does not like the house. It is not their dream house. It is falling apart. The family owns this house, so they are no longer subject to the whims of landlords, and at the old apartment, a nun made Esperanza feel ashamed about where she lived. The house on Mango Street is an improvement, but it is still not the house that Esperanza wants to point out as hers.

Esperanza who longs for a beautiful home of her own. Esperanza doesn’t like her house, she is

As time carries on in the book, through Esperanza’s eyes the reader is shown how cruel reality is on Mango Street. The misery that occurs on Mango Street. Misery of the wives who are beaten by their husbands, from the unwanted pregnancies, and death. Esperanza experiences let down after let down as she tries to adapt to life on Mango Street. As she spends more time on Mango Street, reality sinks in.

Esperanza goes to the house of a “witch woman” named Elenita to have her fortune told. Esperanza goes to have her fortune told to see if there is a “house” in her future, but Elenita only sees a “home in the heart.” Esperanza is disappointed by her fortune because she does not understand it. She wants a new, real home of her own, one where she can live in serenity. Elenita, like Aunt Lupe, offers her the quickest and safest way to get a home for herself, “a home in the heart” – a sense of her character that would be safer than any physical house ever built. Esperanza's “home in her heart” would be self-constructed, loving, and inviolable, free and safe from sexual threats and criticism from others around her. Esperanza fails to realize this,