“The House on Mango Street” was peaceful, easy reading for me. After trudging through many short stories documenting eye-narrowing love affairs, I was slogged down, and began to despair of ever finding a decent story that I could relate to. The main character, who is also the narrator, in Sandra Cisneros' story is never named, and the characters' physical and personality attributes are never described. However, their circumstances are made clear. Her family, like mine, has moved around to different rental houses, and now owns their own home. They had to leave their latest rental in a rush, due to plumbing issues, I too have fled a rental house because of complications with leaky pipes. Finally, the protagonist realizes that each time her family moves, another member is added, which I see as a potential allegory to my own life, as far as making new friends as a result of transitions in my life. I feel as though I can relate with her, due to our similar life experiences. The family in this story has moved around a lot throughout the protagonist's life. They desire to own a house of their own someday, and the protagonist's parents have always dreamed about how it would look, and what amenities it would have. She remembers how “[t]hey always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year. […] And we'd have a basement and at least three washrooms so when we took a bath we wouldn't have to tell everybody. Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence” (Cisneros 151). My family too, has moved around quite a bit. Her parent's dreams for the house they want to provide for their family remind me... ... middle of paper ... ... “The House on Mango Street” I have moved from house to house several times in my lifetime. I have known a homelessness of spirit that is exacerbated by traveling from place to place without rest. Additionally, though I have never experienced “a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom” (Cisneros 151), I have evacuated a rental because of complications caused by a water leak, and have gained good friends, if not family members through the moves. Unlike the protagonist in this story, I am not ashamed of the house I am living in now, nor have I been ashamed of my past living quarters, because each one has been a blessing from the hand of God. He has always provided what we needed when we needed it. Works Cited Cisneros, Sandra. “The House on Mango Street.” The Literature Collection. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Pearson Education, Inc. 2013. 151. Web.
The House on Mango Street is a novel by Sandra Cisneros. It is set in a poor, Latino neighborhood around 1960. The main character, Esperanza, is expected to get married in order to support herself. However, Esperanza strives for independence, and seeks to end the cycle of abusive patriarchy that holds Mango Street in thrall. Through the use of syntax and figurative language, Cisneros establishes that a sense of not belonging can fuel an individual’s desire for a better future.
“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
Throughout life, many hardships will be encountered, however, despite the several obstacles life may present, the best way to overcome these hardships is with determination, perseverance, and optimism. In The House on Mango Street, this theme is represented on various occasions in many of the vignettes. For this reason, this theme is one of the major themes in The House on Mango Street. In many of the vignettes, the women of Mango Street do not make any attempts to overcome the hardships oppressive men have placed upon them. In opposition, Alicia (“Alicia Who Sees Mice”) and Esperanza are made aware that the hardships presented as a result of living on Mango Street can be overcome by working hard and endless dedication to reach personal hopes
“Though Sandra Cisneros from the house on mango street argues that females can not depend on males, and Robert Zemeckis from Forrest Gump argues that people can not give up themselves if they were born special, but both show that people need to work hard to make their dream come true. ” The house on mango street is a novel written by a Mexican American author Sandra Cisneros. Although the book was written in many short stories, it tells about a girl named Esperanza moved to mango street with her big family. They’ve been hoping for a big, all furniture house that can handle their family for long time, however, It’s a small, crowded and old red house with mean
Throughout the book, Esperanza often relates her idea of a perfect house to her current house on Mango Street in a bias manner. When initially introducing the reader to her home, Esperanza states that she “[has] to have a house, (Cisneros 5)” but her house on Mango Street is not one. This implies that she does not feel the same amount of comfort as she would in her dream house. Esperanza later expands on this idea by admitting “[she] knows how it is to be without a house. (Cisneros 87)” Without the feeling of comfort in her home, Esperanza feels as if she is left astray. Her unhappiness with the house is reflected on when she names off some of her responsibilities. All of which will not be an issue when she has “a house all [her] own.(Cisneros 108)” Esperanza looks forward to not taking on other peoples responsibilities once
The literary works The House on Mango Street and Volar both share a mutual theme. The House on Mango Street illustrates how Sandra Cisneros and her family buy a house after renting for years. Cisneros is embarrassed of her house because it is not the house they had dreamed of. At the end, Cisneros dreams of one day owning a house that she is proud of. Volar relates the story of a girl who loves to read comic books and imagines that she is a superhero to distract herself from reality. Her mother also daydreams that they would be able to visit their family in Puerto Rico one day. They distract themselves from their trials by imagining a happier life, and ultimately these two stories mutually demonstrate that people can endure their hardships
Sandra Cisneros was born in 1956 in Chicago, Illinois. She was the only daughter in her family. She had six brothers and zero sisters. She would visit Mexico most of her childhood. She has taught creative writing for many years. Which made her want to be a author. Sandra Cisneros educates about what it’s like in the working class through her literary works including The house on mango street, Woman hollering creek, and caramelo.
To many people, status is a vital symbol in life, but what those same people don’t realise is that even when your status rises, you don’t escape everything you wished to leave behind. Sandra Cisneros knows that, and she captured it perfectly with a quote in her book “The House on Mango Street.” A young, naive character named Cathy says, “I’ll be your friend. But only till next Tuesday. That’s when we move away. Got to. Then as if she forgot [Esperanza] just moved in, she says the neighborhood is getting bad” (Cisneros 13).
“Of course; to give Esperanza the best education possible; it would be best to send her away to a private school. Preferably a religious one.”
A place in which someone lives in, is a memory that they will never forget, the events that took place in that home will never leave your memory. In the story “Cloudy Day” by Jimmy Santiago Baca talks about someone in jail not letting their hope go down . His home is the jail. The author uses his senses in this story by explaining what he hears, sees ,and feels. This is all shown in the stories and
In the novel “ The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a coming of age story about a girl named Esperanza. Throughout the story she endures many conflicts and learns from the situation’s she gets in from childhood to adolescence. She also learns from the women in her neighborhood or barrio who she wants to be and who she doesn’t want to be.Her strength has allowed her to escape, but advice from the three sisters help her to realize she has to help out others who cannot help themselves.
Most who care about accomplishing their goals have had one quality: persistence. Everyone has overcometh the world in some way, but not without a positive attitude and the will to succeed. Specifically, a daily event that occurs with this ability is growing up, since there are always situations and circumstances that lead to maturity. Adulthood comes with many experiences from the time we are little, and those experiences have make us who we are. In the novella The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the author is trying to say that identity develops from negative experiences that bring strength, and this is found when rising out of despair by containing dreams and resilience.
Sandra Cisneros's writing style in the novel The House on Mango Street transcends two genres, poetry and the short story. The novel is written in a series of poetic vignettes that make it easy to read. These distinguishing attributes are combined to create the backbone of Cisneros's unique style and structure.
“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 how we grow through our life experiences. In her personal, Cisneros depicts Esperanza Cordero’s coming-of-age through a series of vignettes about her family, neighborhood, and personalized dreams. Although the novel does not follow a traditional chronological pattern, a story emerges, nevertheless, of Esperanza’s search to discover the meaning of her life and her personal identity. The novel begins when the Cordero family moves into a new house, the first they have ever owned, on Mango Street in the Latino section of Chicago. Esperanza is disappointed by the “small and red” house “with tight steps in front and bricks crumbling in places” (5). It is not at all the dream-house her parents had always talked about, nor is it the house on a hill that Esperanza vows to one day own for herself. Despite its location in a rough neighborhood and difficult lifestyle, Mango Street is the place with which she identifies at this time in her life.
The townhouse, a clean, concise, convenient, cookie-cut, carbon copy of society’s solution to the home. In today’s society of “Big Apples”, “Windy Cities” and “Cities of Angels”, the home has been lost under stacks of green paper. The heart of the home is being choked by the fast-paced materialism that pushes the individual into a heart attack of conformity. Society has become a speed addict for production, wanting bigger, more, and faster in the pursuit for the better. This “better” is often short-lived and quickly replaced. This cycle of replacement needs to end with a solving reinvention that will allow human life to breathe and be comfortable within its own skin. Lives are to be lived not viewed. To do this people need to break the mold that society is mass-producing and live life for themselves and up to their own standards of success and not follow the blue-print of the government’s bureaucratic and aristocratically favored system and ideals. The home should be a saran wrap covering of comfort, security, peace and enjoyment to be shared by and with loved ones. To often in today’s world the lines between business and personal have almost been blurred into oblivion. These are one of the issues that need to be stopped or altered so as to return the house to a home.