The House On Mango Street Identity

Resistance in the Search for a Sense of Individual Identity Creating an identity that is separate from one’s cultural and community background is a difficult task. In Sandra Cisnero’s The House on Mango Street, the narrator is a young Latina girl named Esperanza who explores her own individual identity through the pursuit of friendship with another female named Sally, a girl who pushes boundaries by finding comfort in both sexuality and beauty as forms of self-identification. Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy focuses on a teenage girl who moves from the West Indies to North America in an attempt to pursue the supposed endless American opportunities by creating a new understanding of herself through her career as an au pair for a wealthy, white American

The act of sex is not what she was expecting and she blames the women in the Mango Street community for what happened to her and for lying to her about the realities of sex. Irony is present in this relationship because throughout the novel Sally transforms from a symbol of envy and aspiration to a girl that Esperanza feels pity for. Sandra Cisneros incorporates Sally’s static character as an opportunity to force Esperanza’s character to grow through experience and help Esperanza understand that she doesn’t want to define herself through empty sex. This ties back to Esperanza’s continuing challenge against gender norms and further enhances her need to create an identity for herself not defined by Mango Street. Additionally in Jamaica Kincaid’s novel, Lucy comes to realize that the American Dream is not a reality for all people. Where Mariah finds beauty, she just perceives remnants of colonialism and cultural oppression. This is particularly present when Mariah takes Lucy to a daffodil garden and Lucy reacts angrily,

The two protagonists, Esperanza and Lucy, define their own senses of belonging and identity through their resistance of gender constructs, racial divides, sexuality, and American opportunities. Resistance provides the women with a reality of the downfalls in their communities and allows them to distinguish themselves from the aspects of the community that they do not agree with. Both novels connect to the greater controversial aspects in the United States linked to the problem of the American Dream not being achievable for everyone, exposing the realities of the difference between majority and minority