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Esperanza's The House On Mango Street

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“The House on Mango Street” was written to explain the lives of a family living in poverty in 1984. Coming from Esperanza’s point of view, this book gave her siblings and friends an idea of who the real Esperanza was and what her priorities were. In this book, Esperanza moves from city to city, house to house, with her family hoping for a real house. When she gets to the house on Mango Street, it is not what she expects. She meets new friends and has some crazy experiences. This book has many societal standards but, the most important three are responsibility, happiness, and fitting in. One societal standard is the expectation that the oldest sibling is responsible for the younger siblings’. Being the oldest of the children in her family, …show more content…

Before Esperanza’s cousin’s baptism party her mother is supposed to go out and buy Esperanza a new dress and shoes. When Esperanza’s mom comes back with only the dress and no new shoes, Esperanza is devastated and lets the shoes ruin her night. Her mom expects her to still be happy because it is too late to go back and buy the shoes and because she is too tired. However, Esperanza is still very upset about the shoes and let that impact her night: Everybody laughing except me, because I’m wearing the new dress, pink and white with stripes, and new underclothes and new socks and the old saddle shoes I wear to school, brown and white, the kind I get every September because they last long and they do. My feet scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress, so I just sit. (143-144) Esperanza doesn’t want to look different just because her mother forgot the shoes. She does have to wear her old, beat up shoes with her brand new dress and is not very happy about that but, she does try to make the best of the night and has lots of fun dancing after she forgets about her shoes and becomes less self-conscious. However, she is still disappointed with The House on Mango

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