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Feminism in house on mango street
Feminism in house on mango street
Analysis of house on mango street
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Throughout The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, many symbols, themes, and motifs appear while analysing the story of Esperanza growing up on Mango Street, a poor neighborhood. Symbols are a very big part of this book, because without deeper consideration of the text, this book would just be a series of dull, unrelated stories. One of the most prominent symbols in this story is the symbol of shoes representing our main character, Esperanza, maturing and adjusting into womanhood and her sexuality. The first example of shoes comes in the chapter, in “The Family of Little Feet”. A young Esperanza and her two neighborhood friends, Rachel and Lucy, are given a bag of shoes, with high heels and other nice shoes. The try them on and parade …show more content…
In the chapter “Chanclas”, Esperanza goes to a cousin's baptism party. Shes gets a new dress, and socks, but she has to wear her old school saddle shoes to the party. She notes how big and clunky they are, and denies a boy a dance, out of embarrassment for her shoes. She then stuffs her feet under her chair “My feet growing bigger and bigger”(47). Later her uncle drags her up to dance, and she stop worrying about her ordinary shoes, having a good time. Her Uncle tells her she is the prettiest girl here. Shoes show up in this chapter when Esperanza is asked to dance by a boy, but she is too uncomfortable in her shoes. Again shoes are present at an uncomfortable moment with a boy as she …show more content…
Sally is the prettiest girl at Esperanza's school, and one of Esperanza's friends. She has pretty black suede shoes that Esperanza envies. What Esperanza really envies is Sally sexual maturity, which is why she wants the suede shoes. Her next story with Sally, “The Monkey Garden” continues to emphasize this symbol. Sally and Esperanza are at the neighborhood garden when Sally starts talking to some boys. They take her keys and tells Sally she has to kiss them to get them back. Sally agrees and Esperanza runs to an adult, who doesn't seem to care. Esperanza then grabs some large sticks and a brick to fight. “But when I got there Sally said go home. Those boys said leave us alone. I felt stupid with my brick. They all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy”(pg 97). Esperanza doesn't understand what is going on, and runs to the other side of the garden. She cries herself to sleep under a tree. When she wakes up she ends the chapter saying “I looked at my feet in their white socks and ugly round shoes. They seemed far away. They didn't seem to be my feet anymore. And the garden that had been such a good place to play didn't seem mine either”(pg 98). Esperanza doesn't recognize her feet because those are the feet of a child, the child she used to be. This event is when Esperanza realizes that she can't play in the garden anymore, or be a child. She needs to grow up, mentally and
When Esperanza is struck by the realization that she is not accepted in society, she aspires to bring a more hospitable environment to fruition. At the beginning of The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is questioned by a nun about where she lives. The condemning tone of the harridan shakes Esperanza, causing her to state, “There. I lived there… I knew then I had to have a house. A
“The House on Mango Street” emphasizes on this issue, even broadens to explain other controversial matters such as abuse, misogynistic views, and stereotypes. The protagonist, Esperanza Cordero moves to Mango Street where she must witness the abuse affecting her friends, neighbors, and family. Either Sally a close friend, Mamacita a neighbor, or her own mother handling 4 children. Over the course of the novel Esperanza changes physically and mentally. Through the use of imagery as well as complex, descriptive vignettes Cisneros epitomizes the misogynistic views within Esperanza’s
In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, there is an emphasizes on how rough it is to be part of the low economic class . Through her words you can create an image about the way poverty affects children. She goes through the book making great remarks on the topic. The different experiences that Esperanza goes through have a lot to connect with her family's financial status. She specifically describes her feelings about the poverty they live in through three of her short stories. The three short stories in which poverty seems to be an obstacle are The House on Mango Street, Our Good Day, and Chanclas. When the book begins the downgrading of Esperanza's esteem begins with it.
“Someday, I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without me having to explain them” (9). These are the longing words spoken by Esperanza. In the novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is young girl experiencing adolescence not only longing for a place to fit in but also wanting to be beautiful. This becomes complicated as Esperanza becomes more sexually aware. Throughout the novel, Cisneros argues the importance of beauty and how Esperanza deals with beauty as a part of her identity. When Esperanza meets Sally a new friend, Esperanza’s whole world is turned upside down. Esperanza’s views on beauty change from a positive outlook to a negative one by watching how beauty has damaged Sally’s life.
To begin, Papa's spirit travels with Esperanza when she gives Papa's doll to Isabel. This first appears when Esperanza gets told Isabel hasn't been awarded the Queen of May at her school. To cheer her up, Esperanza tries to talk her out of being angry, sad, and disappointed, which didn't work to well. Finally, Esperanza reaches under bed and takes out valise where she keeps her most prized possession. Esperanza handed the doll, the one Papa have her as a birthday in Mexico, to Isabel and instantly a smile spread across her face. Esperanza tells her to take good of it, and also said Papa would've appreciated it, too. At that time the book quoted, "She lifted the doll
Esperanza builds her strength off the mishaps that occur while living on Mango Street. In the vignettes, Esperanza describes some very interesting things that take place on Mango Street. She recalls a time when Sally befriended her and told Esperanza to leave her alone with the boys. Esperanza felt out of place and was very uncomfortable and very ashamed to be in that situation. She wanted more from life than that, so she left the scene.
Sandra Cisneros' strong cultural values greatly influence The House on Mango Street. Esperanza's life is the medium that Cisneros uses to bring the Latin community to her audience. The novel deals with the Catholic Church and its position in the Latin community. The deep family connection within the barrio also plays an important role in the novel. Esperanza's struggle to become a part of the world outside of Mango Street represents the desire many Chicanos have to grow beyond their neighborhoods.
This portrays the fact of her excitement to living in a fairy tale. In fairy tales, dreams come true and Esperanza’s sure did. When one of the girls put on the high heels, she “screams to take our socks off and yes it’s true, we have legs.” (40). When Esperanza tried on the pair of heels, her scarred childish legs turned into long, sculptured, womens legs. The girls are loving the way heels accentuated their calves and made them look taller as well as mature. They desired the attention of men because the girls knew they looked good in them. In Esperanza's cousin's baptism, she faces herself get self conscious in the saddle shoes her mom gave her. “My feet scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress so I just sit.” (47). The once acceptable shoes she wore year round has suddenly become ugly looking to her. Since she is now paying attention to other girls feet stated previously, Esperanza now knows what shoes are acceptable in this occasion and which are not. As of embarrassment, she hides them. Lastly, when the story is coming to an end, Esperanza states how her life would be once she is an
Sandra Cisneros uses personification and symbolism to affect the theme of the struggle self-consciousness and loss of innocence in a book full of short stories, The House on Mango Street. A young Hispanic preteen named Esperanza, uses a fortune of five dollars to buy a flimsy bicycle. Along with these two other young girls named Lucy and Rachel. The sense of owning a bike is a luxurious dream to them since they live near the poverty line. So, when they receive their bike, Esperanza loves riding it until she rides past her house, which is “sad and red and crumbly in places” (Cisneros 16). The author uses personification to bring down Esperanza to the reality of her situation by portraying her house negatively, which is a reflection of her
What is the pervasive dream, and also the pervasive issue, that influences every character in The House on Mango Street? The answer is “belonging”: that hunger for finding a place, a final niche, that you can call “home”. Cisneros uses symbolism to represent the need of belonging throughout the novel in the motif of the houses that some of the characters miss, or wish to get to, or feel ashamed of. The houses in the novel are the symbol of that need to find a true “home”; a place that not only brings us safe haven but, at the same time, represents who we really are; not our weaknesses, or our limitations. This feeling of belonging is more evident in Esperanza, but it is also present in the rest of the characters in one way or another. In the end, it is the heroine of the novel, Esperanza, who finds her niche when she gets the house all to herself. It is in the house where she finally feeds her hopes, her dreams, her writing, and where she fosters the woman that she is meant to become.
Esperanza was a big dreamer. She dreamed of her perfect house all the time and was determined to make it come true. As she started to become a woman she dreamed of how the boys would look at her and how she actually enjoyed that. She wanted to turn her dreams into reality. On Mango street there was a huge divide between men and women. Esperanza would see how the men beat their wives and daughters to discipline them and to make sure they stay at home. She realized that just being a woman can cause enough abuse and she was not a big fan of that. She heard about her friend,Sally, constantly get beat by her father and later in her own life, was ditched by her and in the end, was raped by a group of men. In a way, Esperanza wanting to be independent was her
When the girls start wearing the shoes, the guys started to observed them more and women admonish the girls. The men aggravate the girls with sexual asserts.Esperanza wants to eat in the canteen since it’s not appealing for her to go back home to
In The House on Mango Street, Cisneroz agitates the theme of diversity through her use of characters and setting. Cisneroz paints a multitude of events that follow a young girl named Esperanza growing up in the diverse section of Chicago. She is dealing with searching for a release from the low expectations that the Latino communities often put women whether young or old are put against. Cisneroz often draws from her life growing up that she was able to base Esperanza's life experiences on and portray an accurate view on Latino societies today. Cisneroz used the chapter “Boys and Girls” and “Beautiful and cruel” to portray Esperanzas growth from a young curious girl to a wise woman. She came into her own personal awareness and her actions that she has to now be held accountable for.
... They didn’t seem to be my feet anymore. And the garden that had been such a good place to play didn’t seem mine either” (Cisneros 98). The play place that was once so innocent and is now a junkyard that reciprocates Esperanza’s innocence that slowly turns into reality. She is growing up. Additionally, she gains enough confidence and maturity to make her own life decisions. This is shown when she makes the important decision of where she wants her life to take her. “I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain” (Cisneros 88). This shows Esperanza’s maturity to make her own life choices by herself. She is finally confident and independent enough to know where she wants her life to take her. Esperanza finally completes her evolution from young and immature to adult-like and confident.
Esperanza's syntax reveals that innocence is irrevocable. Reminiscing of the Monkey Garden Esperanza "suppose[s], the reason why [they] went there" was because it was "Far away from where [their] mothers could find [them]"Cisneros (95). In the garden the kids were able to play without any adults around. The garden became a place of rejuvenation for Esperanza, where only kids were allowed and the horrors of the adult world remain unnoticed. Esperanza observes, "Things had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot them."(95). This shows that the garden was a place where things easily went unnoticed and it was not uncommon to loose things. For Esperanza, this represents the place where she is forced into her loss of childhood, and comparing this to a forgetful old man makes sense since when people mature they loose their innocence and childlike attributes. When the boys stole Sally's keys "they were all laughing" and "[Sally] was too" however, "It was a joke [Esperanza] didn't get"(96). The boys take advantage of Sally by stealing her keys so Sally seizes the opportunity to be able to flirt back with them.