In the book The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the protagonist realizes many things in chapter, The Monkey Garden. Ms, Cisneros uses imagery to contribute to the story by setting the scene for us. “Yellow spiders ran when… so many crusty lady bugs.” The quote shows us the garden the protagonist loves. It demonstrates to us, that even though it is full of bugs, she loves it. Overall, the memoir shows us a few important lessons. The biggest reason the author wanted us to realize was that your childhood will end and when that happens, the world will be very different. The main character says on page 97 that “Only how come I felt angry inside. Like something wasn’t right.” This was perhaps one of the biggest lines in the memoir.
I find the theme in this book to be something that an anyday person or child would experience in a day or much longer piece of time. Any person can experience times of confusion and emotional instability, but if that person sticks it out; they will find an answer to their problems or they will answer answer it for themselves. This pertains to a lifelong conflict, but it does not just pertain to that. It relates to a situation in a day, week, or even, an
Objects in the garden that reflect the reality of the lot and not the fantasy of the garden are not transformed into bigger than life images, but silent, unseeing objects. Abandoned cars, weeds, and rotting wood close their eyes and sleep. Sleeping, these objects are hidden, unable to see themselves or others in the garden. “ worms blind and afraid of the light” and “ spiders” hide under the surface of the garden, unable to see the reality of the lot (paragraph 4).
“ This is where I wanted to die and where I tried one day but not even the monkey garden would have me. It was the last day I would go there. Who was it that said I was getting too old to play the game? Who was it I didn't listen to? I only remember that when the others ran, I wanted to run too, up and down and through the monkey garden, fast as the boys.” ( chapter 38, page 96.) The Monkey Garden is near Esperanza's house. At the point of this part of the book Esperanza is caught in that awkward period of adolescence where she still wants to act like a little kid, but she's also starting to think about “ grown-up” things like “sex.” The archetypal garden is like the Biblical Garden of Eden in Genesis. It's a place where springtime is around and people live in harmony with nature, and also about that everyone runs around naked without being embarrassed about it. So, that's pretty much what the kids in Mango Street find in the Monkey Garden. ( minus the naked part.) At first, when they found the garden they think it's “ a wonderful thing to look at in the spring. But bit by bit, after the monkey left, the garden began to take over itself. Flowers stopped obeying the little brick that kept them from growing beyond their paths.” ( chapter 38, page 95.) The Garden becomes a place where they can play their games and build “no grown- ups allowed” clubhouse. This part brings us to the second part of the
The first thing I learned is never take life for granted. You show in your book how a teenagers life is changed by one thing, cancer. I´ve heard how most of the time it can be life-threatening. When I read your book I saw the full effect cancer had on Steven´s school-life and family-life. The book also showed me you never know what someone is going through
In The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses numerous amounts of metaphors to express how the characters are held down and lack opportunities to move forward in their lives. The use of metaphors also allows Cisneros show the readers the different aspects of the neighborhood. Cisneros highlights metaphors to show how men oppress the value of women, the opportunities which are present for individual characters, and how characters are not able to progress in their lives due to their social surroundings.
A person once said “The roots of education are bitter, but the fruits are sweet.” meaning that the result of education is the best part after receiving it. Education has many benefits anyway you look at it. In the book The house on mango street, Sandra Cisneros shows that alicia and esperanza both view education and writing as a way to a better life. Through these and other characters cisneros sees education and writing as a way to freedom.
The mood of the memoir is very troubling as she and her siblings are trying to survive. It is uplifting to see them triumph over all the obstacles and roadblocks her parents throw at them. “That was the thing about the hospital. You never had to worry about running out of stuff like food or ice cream or even chewing gum. I would be happy have been staying in that hospital forever,” Jeannette says (Walls 12). This scene shows that she is both young and wise by being able to reference her home life while not actually saying in particular what she meant. She is easily pleased with a stick of gum but old enough to realize that maybe gum was a normal thing that normal people had. The book is more effective because you can infer what the author wants you to feel and be more emotionally involved rather than in the movie because it is easy to skip over the
Before the memoir begins, the author clearly points out that she will be writing as her father while retelling his life story after gathering information about his life. The prologue is the main reminder that the memoir is written by the daughter about her father who had taken his life, and later on in the epilogue as well. More importantly, the author takes away the surprise of the novel by mentioning her father “took his own life” (Toews 1) which tells the readers exactly how the story will end. In spite of revealing the ending, Toews uses suspense as a literary technique to pique the reader’s curiosity and investment by wondering what leads to his suicide. However with this fact brought out from the very beginning, the reader focuses on the life Mel Toews leads to explain his spiral descent in depression. Rather, through symbolic scenes such as the egg scene or the dream of finding a home, the author presents eerie foreshadows implying the subject’s aimlessness in the world he finds himself in. For example, in the egg scene, he states “[w]ho will keep [him] warm before [he] breaks?”(89). The quotation is a potential
, we learn about major life lessons important for teens to learn about, all through the help of the characters in the book. Firstly, we learn that life is tough trying to make it on your own on the streets and if you ask for help, you could have a better life. For example, Dylan is reluctant to go to the drop in centre or the education building for help (48) but when he does, he gets food, good advice and a
Growing up is a journey, to be specific it 's a journey in a maze. We go around in different directions in hopes to find out who we indeed are. Left to right in every direction we run into things that change our mindset and by the end of the maze, we are entirely different people. Most mazes have doors; open one door new beginning, shut another end of that chapter. Specific events in life alter our young minds, and we tend to grow from these experiences. Personal and social encounters come our way and turn us into adults. Milkman in the novel Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison goes through various incitements and awakenings that force him to change his ways and enhance his
In the book I can connect to some of the things in it. In life people have happy things happen and negative things happen. “Life throws too much crap at us as it is, so why hold onto something
There are things that happen when we are growing up that change us when we are grown. There are things that change us forever. Every human being is different, and there is a reason why . All of us had a childhood and all kinds of experiences some good, some bad, some full of joy but also others very painful. Eventually we grow childhood and mature depending of what we have gone through. The way we are able to handle situations is very important because one thing leads to another. We can't rely on intuition, we need to have logic in what our choices are. We can’t just punch someone in the face just because we don’t like a certain individual, or go up to
These are the seven metaphors in The house on Mango Street I found the most effective. “It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath,” page 4. By personifying the house and describing it as holding its breath, it gives you an idea on how cramped it was. “Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor,” page 9. Esperanza is lonely because she doesn’t have a best friend and feels like she’s tied down by her siblings. “At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth,” page 11. This describes the struggle of having a foreign sounding name in the United States that most people can’t pronounce. “It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck shadows and in our bones,” page 20. This describes how music can feel bigger than sound and you can
However, his words are a key element to the story because they reflect valuable lessons that the children may need for future reference. The narrator wants to save the children from heartache and disappointment; however he fails to realize that all children must experience these emotions for themselves in order to become mature. As the narrator stares into the lives of the children, it seems as though he is reliving his own life. His
In order for Jack to come to power, he uses the boy’s fear of the island while telling them that he will lead them to hunt and kill the beast. Currently, on the island, the beast was in everyone's thoughts and dreams. During the night, the littluns would scream during their sleep due to a figure known as the beast. Jack exclaims to Ralph that there was no beast on the island and there is nothing to be afraid of. Later on, in chapter 5 during an assembly, Jack declared that “...We’re strong–we hunt! If there’s a beast, we’ll hunt it down! We’ll close in and beat and beat and beat–!” (91). Jack is exclaiming to the boys that there is a beast and he will hunt it down and beat it, even though he previously said to Ralph that the beast is a myth