Language in Cisneros and Drakuli

965 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Esperanza house on the mango street

Cisneros “House on Mango Street” tells the story of a young girl, Esperanza, as she struggles to find a better life in Chicago and bid goodbye to the miserable life she leads in Puerto Rico (Cisneros, 2004). As she leaves her poor village, she makes a promise to herself to go back for those she leaves behind; she is fully aware of the impoverished lives that her friends and relatives lead. An important aspect of this book deals with how Cisneros portrays Esperanza’s use of language to form her identity. In “Café Europa”, Drakuli examines the life stories of the people of Eastern Europe in the wake of the fall of the USSR. She also employs language in presenting her themes, as well as portraying its potency in societal development. Language is a powerful tool which determines the extent to which one integrates oneself to society and establishes his/her identity. This paper examines how the authors portray language in these books, and how this language induces contact between entities.

Similarities/Differences

While the two authors address similar themes, they do so in strikingly dissimilar methods, which advise their approach and language. Their chief similarity is that both Cisneros and Drakuli concur that lacking proficiency in language/culture creates powerlessness; mastering it, on the other hand, provides one with unique opportunities as one can communicate, argue, express and govern. Esperanza, for instance, desires to change her name as she considers this the first step towards creating her own destiny. Drakuli also realized that the only way she and her people would ever be free was if they rid themselves of Communist mind-set, as well as developed autonomous cultural and language structures that suited their needs. A voc...

... middle of paper ...

...In both their works, they demonstrate the truthfulness of this statement by presenting examples of how it has caused and aided cultural, social and ideological change to various people, under different circumstances. Overall, language induces contact between entities.

Works Cited

Cisneros, S. (2004). The House on Mango Street, 2nd edition. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN: 9780747560876.

Drakulic, S. (1996). Café Europa: Life after Communism. London: Abacus ISBN: 9780349107295.

Merril, C. (1997). “Breaking Away: Cafe Europa: Life After communism, by Norton, W. W.” Los Angeles Times. Retrieved on 10th December, 2011: http://articles.latimes.com/1997-02-16/books/bk-29259_1_drakulic-cafe-europa.

Silber, E. S and Fisher, J. (2003). Readings in Literature: Reading through the Lens of Gender. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Show More
Related

  • Control In House On Mango Street

    685 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the poor slums of Chicago, a family living in poverty struggles to get by. In the book, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza is a twelve year old girl who lives with her family in the Windy City. She lives with her three siblings and both parents on Mango Street. Esperanza has no control over her life and family’s poverty. People who have no control over their life desperately seek change. Esperanza seeks to change her name, her home, and her destiny as a way to control her life.

    Read More

  • Walker's Message of Personal Heritage in "Everyday Use"

    1795 Words  | 4 Pages

    DiYanni, Robert. "Literature, Reading Fiction, Poetry and Drama." Walker, Alice. Everyday Use. Boston: McGraw Hill, 1973. 743-749.

    Read More

  • The Mother Tongue by Demetria Martinez

    2546 Words  | 6 Pages

    Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.

    Read More

  • The House On Mango Street Research Paper

    789 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Sandra Cisneros’ fictional novel The House on Mango Street, she suggests that you have to find yourself before you can change yourself. The author first introduces Esperanza as an insecure young girl; she then changes by becoming more responsible, but still very impressionable; and in the end she turns into an independent woman, with many hopes for the future. Cisneros’ purpose is to show Esperanza’s growth throughout the story to teach people a lesson about growing up and finding out who you really are. Over the course of the novel, Esperanza develops from a small seed to a blossoming flower as a result of hope, success, and independence.

    Read More

  • Jig and the Stream of Life in Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants”

    1631 Words  | 4 Pages

    Flynn, Elizabeth. Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts. Johns Hopkins, 1986. 280-281.

    Read More

  • Symbolism Of Hope In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the short story “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, make Esperanza the main character. Esperanza expresses herself in traditional words, her own feelings about life. The image of the The House on Mango Street is located in a poor neighborhood, where this young girl and her family present emotions becoming into a hope of a better life. These feelings led Esperanza convert the idea to own a beautiful house into an obsession. The image of Esperanza and her House becomes a symbol of different ideas such as shame, fantasy, independence, confidence and hope.

    Read More

  • Anzaldua's Essay On Identity And Discrimination

    1291 Words  | 3 Pages

    Language is a means of communication and it varies from one community to another. Everyone has a mother tongue which depended on the family’s upbringing. A second language can be learned along the way. There are also instances where a person is born in a community that speaks two languages and therefore, had to learn both languages. The quality of the languages learned will be affected by how well the community speaks both languages. This can later develop into a new form of language. The essay describes the frustration of the author who felt rejected by different groups for speaking a different form of language. Her essay aims to gain sympathy from readers by seeing the issue from her point of view. Anzaldua attempts to achieve this in her essay by raising issues on identity and discrimination. She wanted to highlight that language is not determined by a country’s physical borders.

    Read More

  • Taming A Wild Tongue Analysis

    530 Words  | 2 Pages

    Although authors tend to cover different subjects and arguments many use the same strategies to do so. Literary strategies are constantly found in all forms of writing as they aid authors in presenting their argument to an audience.“How to Tame A Wild Tongue” is an essay by Gloria Anzaldua thats discusses difficulties that accompany Chicano Spanish. “Mother Tongue” is an essay by Amy Tan in which she discusses how her mother's Chinese language and “broken” English, and how her mother's language has affected her own. In their essays, both Anzaldua and Tan analyze language and their personal experience in relation to the subject. Both these pieces present different arguments about language while using similar strategies to do so. Although their subject is language and the arguments present differ, the point of view in which they present their arguments and literary strategies used to do so are the same.

    Read More

  • The House on Mango Street Cisneros's Style

    466 Words  | 1 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Good and Evil in Good Country People

    1741 Words  | 4 Pages

    DiYanni, Robert. Literature Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. McGraw Hill : Boston, Massachusette, 1998.

    Read More

  • Spanish: The Key to Opportunity

    777 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...opens the door to countless opportunities and benefits that one would not have had otherwise. In addition to being a deciding factor in employment and a vital tool for comprehension of literary works produced in the Spanish-speaking world, the Spanish language is the foundation upon which global awareness and cultural sensitivity is built. The Spanish language holds the key to eliminating political dissension in Cuba. The Spanish language can uncover the secrets in poetry of Gabriela Mistral. And knowledge of the Spanish language opens up opportunities to work on ground-breaking research in other countries. A simple commitment to complete a semester of Spanish can unlock so many doors and present numerous additional opportunities. The Spanish language possesses the power to transform one’s narrow worldview into a multilingual, culturally sensitive universe.

    Read More

  • Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

    1099 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading & Reacting & Writing. 4th ed. Boston: Earl McPeek, 2000. 388-423.

    Read More

  • Feminist Reading of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

    1444 Words  | 3 Pages

    Schweickart, Patrocinio. "Reading Ourselves." Speaking of Gender. Elaine Showalter, editor.  New York: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1989.

    Read More

  • Family Ties

    833 Words  | 2 Pages

    Roberts, Edgar V., and Zwieg, Robert, eds. Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 10th ed. Illinois: Glenview, Pearson Education Inc. 2012. Print.

    Read More

  • Making the Right Choice

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Literature: Reading, Reacting, Writing. Compact 8th. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011. Print.

    Read More

More about Language in Cisneros and Drakuli

Open Document