Can we ever truly escape the place that we come from? Many people, especially conservative politicians talk about upward mobility as if people can easily change their position in life, however studies shows that this is not necessarily true. A recent study claims that “It is increasingly the case that no matter what your educational background is, where you start has become increasingly important for where you end” (Carr). Personally, I agree that upward mobility is as easy as people tend to believe it is. In my own family, my mother and both of her sisters are well educated. Though they all went to prestigious private colleges, a decision which hypothetically should have helped them to escape from the cycle of the lower middle class, …show more content…
For Esperanza, the House on Mango Street is “not the house we thought we’d get,” (Cisneros 3). It is “the house [she] is ashamed of” (Cisneros 106); she desperately yearns to live in a big house with “real stairs… a basement and at least three washrooms” (Cisneros 4). However, in many ways, this house and this dream are unattainable. One of the many things that keeps minorities in poverty is the fact that as minority families move into a neighborhood, slightly wealthier white families move out of it. “Esperanza is aware of how white residents have fled the community to avoid sharing space with people whom they consider to be beneath them” (Roszak 66). A study from Brandeis University shows that this experience is not unique to this book, in fact, housing equity is a large factor in racial socioeconomic inequality. “Residential segregation artificially lowers demand, placing a forced ceiling on home equity for [minorities] who own homes,” (Shapiro 3) thus making it harder for minority families to get out of poverty at all as their houses, a major source of investment, lose value compared to inflation. Esperanza’s family has dreamed of the bigger house, and yet, the house they own is this one, the one on Mango Street. Even if they were to succeed in getting a bigger house, the house of their dreams, it is likely that house too would become less valuable and keep them in poverty. Other women show that the cycle of poverty is hard to break, for various reasons. Ruthie, the daughter of an apartment owner on Mango Street, failed to escape poverty also. She “had lots of job offers when she was young” but instead married and “moved away to a pretty house outside of the city,” (Cisneros 69) using marriage as her source of upward mobility. Unfortunately, her “fairy tale” escape from Mango
The most important Theme in The House on Mango Street is identity. Identity is a very
Have you ever heard of a poor child who has lived in a very uncomfortable home and didn’t have great wealth? In The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, this is the problem. In The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros Esperanza Cordero is the main character. Esperanza lived in the house on mango street during her developmental years, from the ages six to her becoming a young adult. The three biggest problems Esperanza's faces are poverty, confidence, and relationships.
In life, we are often deeply influenced by the people who surround us. Consider the age-old adage “Birds of a Feather Flock Together”; this familiar saying reminds us that, in life, we gravitate toward people who appeal to us, and those people can have a great impact on who we are and the choices we make. In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza meets many women who play a role in her life. Some of the women impact her in negative ways, but others help her to see that she can make more of her life than what her Chicago neighborhood offers. Of all the women in Esperanza’s life, Esperanza is most influenced by her mother and Alicia because they teach her to rely on herself in order to escape Mango Street.
Many people want a certain lifestyle. A well-built house, a supporting family, and a stable job. People would usually refer to this way of living as the American Dream. In the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, she writes short stories representing the American Dream very well. One of the well-known main characters of her stories in the book is a young girl named Esperanza. The Main topic the story revolves around is the difficulties Esperanza and her family go through in a poor neighborhood in the city of Chicago. Some of the struggles they have to overcome are so hard that money, time, and your family are very important and can all be affected.
When first coming to this country as a Hispanic American you may face a lot of difficulties and find more problems than the average white American. Hispanic people go through different adversities and have trouble overcoming them. In The House on Mango Street the main character Esperanza is the one that narrates the story, she explains what it is like to live on Mango Street. She shows the readers that living on Mango Street is perceived as a terrible area, if one were looking from the outside in. But those that live there feel that they live in fair living conditions. The fact is most of the people who live on Mango Street don 't know what it 's like to live outside of mango street. In the story, they show a lifestyle that most Hispanic people deal with especially the ones that come to America and have to figure out how to make ends meet. In The House on Mango Street, the novel has many themes and problems, such as gender inequality, stereotypes, and language barriers. With short stories like "Aria" and "the myth of Latin Woman," a solution is always found. Sometimes there is a simple solution and other times, it is not so easy to find, or there 's just no solution to solving the characters problems and they are still trying to look for results.
In the collection of vignettes, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops the theme that people should not be devalued because of their financial circumstances through metaphors of classism, the motif of shame, and the contrast between minor characters Alicia and Esperanza’s mother. Esperanza, the protagonist, is a Mexican-American adolescent living in the rural Chicago region. She occupies a house on Mango Street with her father, mother, two brothers, Carlos and Kiki, and little sister, Nenny. Mango Street is filled with low-income families, like Esperanza’s, trying to adapt to their difficult circumstances. Esperanza realizes it is difficult, but she dreams of leaving her house and Mango Street altogether.
Hook: In the coming-of-age novel, House on Mango Street, the main character Esperanza narrates the story through her perspective of the situations she encounters as she grows older in her new neighborhood.
When passing through a poor neighborhood, have you ever thought, “this place is dangerous.” even though you just see what’s on the surface? The dirty buildings, run down stores, and unkempt roads persuade us to perceive that neighborhood in a negative light, but you might do this unconsciously because ever since we were young, socioeconomic status is what separates the “good”, from the “bad”. Sandra Cisneros’, House on Mango Street, shows us how harmful having a previous notion of a place or person can be. In the novel, we meet Esperanza Cordero, a girl whose parents never strived above the working class. Because of their low income, they are forced to move into neglected homes on the verge of crumbling, their final stop being Mango
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a coming of age novel of a young Mexican-American girl developing in a working class Chicago neighborhood. The author is much like the main character Esperanza in many different ways. One being that Cisneros was also a Mexican-American girl growing up in a Chicago working class neighborhood. Esperanza is a foil of Cisneros’ beliefs and opinions of her Mexican culture and heritage. While Esperanza is embarrassed of being a Mexican-American around white Americans, Cisneros is proud to be a Mexican-American girl. In Sara Rimer’s article, “San Antonio Journal; Novelist’s Purple
In The House on Mango Street, we see how the youth struggled with the discrimination being pushed on them by Whites. Esperanza describes how they lived in such a poverty-stricken area of the city, and did not interact with the Whites. She talks about how the Whites saw Mexicans as bad people who committed crimes. Esperanza shows how personal identity for Mexicans was made
In the very first vignette Esperanza discusses how her family moved around a lot and even though the house on Mango Street was not the house of their dreams, it was a great achievement to own it. Although Esperanza knew they were not moving anytime soon, she recognized one advantage; her family was free of landlord management. In my community home ownership is a constant battle and for many simply a dream. I learn the value of home ownership in a similar sequence as Esperanza. My little sister and I were moved to and from apartment to family member’s houses until our first small home. A home with no back yard and only four stairs and side walk out front. None the
“Home is where the heart is.” In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros develops this famous statement to depict what a “home” really represents. What is a home? Is it a house with four walls and a roof, the neighborhood of kids while growing up, or a unique Cleaver household where everything is perfect and no problems arise? According to Cisneros, we all have our own home with which we identify; however, we cannot always go back to the environment we once considered our dwelling place. The home, which is characterized by who we are, and determined by how we view ourselves, is what makes every individual unique. A home is a personality, a depiction of who we are inside and
Can we ever truly escape the place that we come from? Many people, especially during the most recent election, talk about upward mobility as if people can easily change their position in life, however this is not necessarily true. Personally, I believe that upward mobility is not as easy as people tend to believe it is. In my family, my mother and both of her sisters are well-educated. Though they all studied at prestigious private colleges, which hypothetically should have helped them escape from the cycle of the lower middle class, only one of the three achieved social mobility. A variety of factors pulled my mother and her younger sister back down, most significantly, the situation they grew up in and the gender roles they continued
In the book The House on Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros presents a series of vignettes that involve a young girl, named Esperanza, growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza Cordero is searching for a release from the low expectations and restrictions that Latino society often imposes on its young women. Cisneros draws on her own background to supply the reader with accurate views of Latino society today. In particular, Cisneros provides the chapters “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and Cruel” to portray Esperanza’s stages of growth from a questioning and curious girl to an independent woman. Altogether, “Boys and Girls” is not like “Beautiful and Cruel” because Cisneros reveals two different maturity levels in Esperanza;
In today’s world there are countless social problems. People are often treated as an inferior or as if they are less important for many different reasons. In The House on Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros addresses these problems. Throughout the story Cisneros does a thorough job explaining and showing how these issues affect the public. This novel is written through the eyes of a young girl, Esperanza, growing up in a poor neighborhood where the lifestyles of the lower class are revealed. Cisneros points out that, in today’s society, the expectation of women and their treatment, discrimination based on poverty, and discrimination because of a person’s ethnicity are the major