“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
Esperanza’s insecurity about where she lives and how she lives is the conflict of the story. A tradition her father, Nenny, and herself has is going to the houses on the hills, she believes she looks like the hungry asking for food so she no longer goes. Esperanza is so ashamed of her house that when someone ask which house she lives in she denies living in those flats. She becomes aware of how poor her family is when she must go to work to help pay for private school, this encourages her to get out of the flats. Esperanza sets out to be able to support herself on her own and buy the house she has been dreaming of since she was little.
“Please, Miguel, no teasing. I need help. I need to work so I can bring Abuelita to Mama.”(pg 165) “Esperanza copied everything that Hortensia and Josefina did.” (pg 169)Esperanza was also depressed and worried about her mama. “She
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, portrays the life of a teenage girl named Esperanza living on Mango Street. Though Esperanza lives in a diverse city, pre-existing stereotypes are affecting how others(women?) are perceived and treated. Esperanza starts to see how to change her community and the negative view of herself by taking the wrong actions of other women and connecting them to her own life experiences.
There is a girl, who got everything she wants. A huge house, horses, amazing dresses, and, her birthday is right around the corner. Throughout the novel Esperanza learns to not be afraid to start over as she shows personal growth in the face of her father's death, their house burning down and Tio Luis proposing to mama, and her mother getting sick. Her father dies unexpectedly one night, and they faced with grief and disbelief. Shortly after Esperanza's uncles, Tio Luis and Tio Marco come and apologize for their loss. After, the uncles come back to talk about “family business”. The lawyer tells Mama that Tio Luis is the owner of the land and their house and their grapes are on his land too. Tio Luis then proposes to Mama and says that they will be very happy and they can continue life as the way it was. Of course, Mama refuses and Tio Luis says he will make life very hard for them. That night Esperanza woke up to her mother screaming “Esperanza!” he mother told her that the house was on fire and they need to get out.
Esperanza is led by the dream to leave Mango Street at once, nevertheless she knows that she will have to return one day to help and encourage all those who will fallen in the big hole of hopelessness. She can leave Mango Street but she can not escape
Esperanza is new to the neighborhood, and was never proud of her previous houses, but the negative intonation that the nun uses on her makes her feel like she is being judged, not on who she is, but what her family can afford. There is the place Esperanza now has to call home and the degrading presumption that the neighborhood already has causes her to accept that she can’t change her image without money and let her personality shine through. She seems to accept her label as poor in the story, “A Rice Sandwich”, where she believes the special, also known as rich, kids get to eat in the canteen and she wants to be part of that narrative, so she begs her mother for three days, to write her a note to allow her eat in the canteen. When she couldn’t endure her daughter’s nagging anymore, she complied. Thinking this would be enough affirmation, Esperanza went to school the next with the note and stood in the line with the other kids. She wasn’t recognized by the nun who checks the list, and has to face Sister Superior, who claims that she doesn’t live far enough to stay at school and asks Esperanza to show where her house is. “That one? She said, pointing to a row of ugly three -flats, the ones even the raggedy men are ashamed to go into. Yes, I nodded even though I knew that wasn’t my house,”(45). Esperanza was compared to the most raggedy men, and had to accept
In Sandra Cisnero’s novella, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza sees the importance of learning about her sexuality as she is growing up from her childhood to adolescence. In the first vignette, “The Family of Little Feet,” Esperanza and her two other friends receive three pairs of “dancing shoes” which they all are excited about. They get the idea to put them on and walk around town showing off how beautiful the shoes are. They feel good and special in front of everyone up until Mr. Benny at the grocery store notices the girls and asks, “Your mother know you got shoes like that? Them are dangerous. You girls too young to be wearing shoes like that. Take them shoes off before I call the cops” he threatens (41). At first, Esperanza and her friends don’t pay attention to what Mr. Benny
This proves Esperanzas arrogance when she was unwilling to let the peasant girl see her doll because she didn’t want to share when it would have been a nice and simple thing to do.
Esperanza is a shy but a very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home now, with beautiful flowers in their luscious garden and a room for everyone to live in comfortably all because of the unsatisfied face the nun made that one afternoon--when she moves to the house of Mango Street. She thinks it’s going to be a “grand house on a hill that will have a bedroom for everyone and at least three washrooms so when they took a bath they would not have to tell everybody.” (Cinceros 4) Reality is so different for her when her dream is shot down in a heartbeat when she
In the novel The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros tells the story of Esperanza, a young girl who lives in poverty. Esperanza experiences connections with others to help her become more accepting to living on Mango Street, regardless of her initial thoughts of the house. Throughout the novel, Esperanza accepts her life on Mango Street due to new friends and good experiences.
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.
Another factor in achieving maturity is through one’s experience with life. Esperanza 's experience shows the transformation of her ignorance to the understanding of what many men perceive women as. A woman from the wealthier side of the neighborhood gave Lucy, Rachel, and Esperanza a pair of high heels, which they wear it down the street when Mr. Benny says "[t]hem are dangerous... You girls too
Esperanza grows up in a Hispanic environment, herself being Mexican. Many Hispanic cultures have the same view on life when it comes to women. These cultures believe women should stay home and take care of the house, kids, and husband. These standards determine how women live their daily lives and does not allow for independence. Additionally, these standards are a challenge for women who dream big and want to achieve more in life than staying in the kitchen. The women on Mango Street are portrayed as lacking independence and are trapped in their houses, due to their husbands following society’s cruel expectations on these Hispanic women. In The House on Mango Street, the reader meets a young woman who is different than the majority of the women on Mango Street. Esperanza introduces Alicia, a young lady who is a victim of cultural expectations, “Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inherited her mama’s rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus, because she doesn’t want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin.”
Esperanza forms her identity on Mango Street, but will never forget her true self and home. At the end of the book she says, “One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from” (87). She knows that she can and will get out of the neighborhood she is in at that current moment in time because she has the determination to lead a better life than the one she lives now. Nothing can alter the true identity she formed while growing up on Mango Street.
Have you ever felt like the place you belonged to didn’t belong to you? In The House on Mango Street, this is how the main character, Esperanza, felt. The author, Sandra Cisneros, did a good job in portraying a girl who couldn’t find her place. She had a problem accepting where she was from, The House on Mango Street is heartfelt novel and is great to pass the time. In this story, you will be shown the lives of Esperanza, her sister Nenny, their two best friends Rachel and Lucy, and the many people who lived on Mango Street. This book is about a girl who went from denying her place to accepting it.