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My name analysis
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After reading “ My Name” by Sandra Cisneros I realized something i really never thought was important was indeed important. In this excerpt Esperanza states how she doesn't want to be like her great-grandmother whom has the same name but she wants to be different, she wants to break free from the meaning that her great-grandmother gave to the name. From her saying this I found out that I related to Esperanza more that what i thought. I relate because I know what it's like to have inherited a name and have to try to exceed in being the meaning of that name, but like Esperanza “I don't want to inherit a seat by the window’’, instead i want to break free from the chains of the meaning of the name and create a new meaning. The excerpt “ My Name”
In The House on Mango Street, the vignette "My Name," Esperanza was named after her great grandmother, desires a life outside her interior walls of the barrio. Esperanza’s name means hope in English, while it means sadness and waiting in Spanish. Her great grandmother was wild as a young lady, but was tamed by her Mexican husband. Cisneros states, "She looked out her window her whole life, the way so many women sit with sadness on an elbow . . . I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window" (11). Esperanza is proud of her namesake...
Esperanza must define herself both as a woman and as an artist, and her view of her identity changes over the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel Esperanza wants to change her name in order to define herself on her own terms, instead of accepting a name that expresses her family heritage. “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (Cisneros 11). She wants to separate herself from her parents and her younger sister in order to create her own life, and changing her name seems to her an important step in that direction. Later, after she becomes more sexually aware, Esperanza would like to be “beautiful and cruel” so that boys will like her but not hurt her, and she pursues that goal by becoming friends with Sally. After she is assaulted, she doesn’t want to define herself as “beautiful and cruel” anymore, and she is, once again, unsure of who she
In the book The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, the main character, Esperanza, was affected by many external forces, including family. Esperanza is a young teen who just moved to Mango Street, and she doesn’t like her house because it’s ugly, and she dreams of another house that her family has promised one day. “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window (Cisneros 11). This was in reference to her great grandmother who didn’t want to marry, but Esperanza’s great grandfather kidnapped her and forced her to marry, where Esperanza’s great grandmother never forgave him and looked out a window for the rest of her life. Esperanza didn’t chose her name, her family did, and she didn’t chose who her family is either. The external force of family is an issue in real life just as it is in this novel, and the teens learn to either love it or hate it.
In some ways it resembles immigrant culture, but unlike Americans of Jewish culture or Indian culture, for example, Chicanos have been consistently excluded from the American mainstream. The author, Cisneros uses language as a recurring cultural barrier throughout the story. This barrier is shown immediately in the beginning of the story when Esperanza observes the people around her on Mango Street and realizes that if not knowing or not mastering the language creates powerlessness, then having the ability to manipulate language will give her power. After that Esperanza has the desire to change her name so that she can have power over her own identity. This action implies Hofstede’s Dimensions of Cultural Variability and Esperanza puts to action individualism by valuing her independence and thinking in terms of “I” choices.
Throughout these three texts, it is apparent that people often find themselves being treated differently if they have uncommon or unfamiliar names. In My Name, for example, Cisneros explores this idea through Esperanza’s struggle with her peers’ treatment of her name: “In English my name means hope,” she begins, in stark contrast to later in the story, where she writes: “At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth.” (1; par. 1, par. 5) This instance exemplifies the issue of
My Name: In this short story the author still uses techniques to craft a quality piece of writing. One technique that is common in this short story is the use of Cliche. The expression of sadness is apparent through the story. She hates her name and would do anything to change it. She does respect
Esperanza had troubles with accepting her identity. She hated her name and she hated the fact that her and her parents lived in poverty. She struggled with her ethnicity, sexuality, and her economic status. As she gets older she starts to become aware that what defines her is writing. When she writes she can feel comfortable about herself and let go emotionally.
I chose the first quote about Esperanza name because it shows the importance of language. I believe that language is the number one symbol of cultures and it is an expression of who we are as individuals. In this passage, Esperanza struggles to find her identity through the history of her name. We learned that Esperanza had inherited the name of her grandmother, but does not want to inherit her grandmother place of being locked into a house through marriage, and spending the rest of her life looking out the window in sadness. Esperanza says her name mean hope in English, which has a positive connotation, but then, chooses negative words such as sadness, too many letters, and a muddy color to associate with the meaning of her name in Spanish.
She explains how her sister could at least be called Nenny “But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do” ( Cisneros My Name). When Esperanza visits her neighbors aunts, they remind her why her name is so important. She will always be Esperanza and she cannot escape it. As part of the sisters’ advice, they told Esperanza; “When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are” (Cisneros The Three Sisters). This is one of the most important lines in the whole novella because for the throughout her life, Esperanza wanted a change, a place she could leave and go to, a place where she could be her. This shows her that no matter where she goes, she will always be a part of Mango Street, the experiences she has encountered and the lessons she has learned were made there. Her past, makes her
For instance, Esperanza did not like her name or appreciate the new house she has. Esperanza states, “A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The house on Mango Street isn’t it.”(5). She also states that “I would like to baptize myself under a new name”(11). Esperanza is shown how she is being all selfish and unappreciative of the things around her. She does not appreciate what she has, her name, and her life and wants more and better things. Her naïve and young behavior led to this making her oblivious to the good life she
Her name was one of the main reasons she rejected her identity. She did not want to end up like her grandmother, who she was
In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, conflict is utilized to present the notion that the challenges we face in our lives contribute to the shaping of our identity. This idea is presented early in the novel when readers are introduced to the root of Esperanza’s conflicts – her house on Mango Street. This street is where the novel takes place, and it is where a patriarchal society thrives, thus making it a primary conflict that Esperanza, along with other women, must deal with. This problem is first addressed when Esperanza explains the meaning behind her name: “It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse – which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female – but I think this is a
Esperanza expresses the conflict between having two cultures in her life through the vignette “My Name”. “In english my name means hope. In spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing” (Cisneros 10). Esperanza expresses how she is feeling towards herself in this quote because it describes how she is confused of where she stands in society because of all the different meanings of her name. Esperanza has many different meanings of her name as shown within the vignette “My Name”. the reason why she has so many different meanings is because of her two different cultures. She simply does not know which culture that is her name. In life when one may be confused or overwhelmed they may travel down a path of uncertainty and have to turn to others for
Whether it be a family member, friend, or stranger, the loss of a person is hard. Everybody, from all walks of life has –in some way- been affected by loss. Its profound effects on human cycology have been one of the most influential elements in literature. Three novels, Geraldo No Last Name, Typhoid Fever, and Night Calls, explore the effects of loss through the voice of the narrator, as well as the author’s personal experiences.
Writing in the 20th century was great deal harder for a Chicano then it was for a typical American at this time. Although that did not stop this author, Sandra Cisneros. One of her famous novels, Woman Hollering Creek was a prime example of how a combined culture: Mexican-Americans, could show their pride and identity in this century. In conjunction, gave the opportunity for women to speak their voice and forever change the culture of Latino/a markets. Not only did it express identity/gender roles of women and relationships, but using these relationships to combine the cultures of Mexican and American into a hybrid breed. This novel, should have been a view-point for the future to show that there is more to life than just gender and race. Concluding this, the articles that helps define this is “The Latino/a Canon and the Emergence of Post-Sixties Literature” and “What is called Heaven”.