The most important Theme in The House on Mango Street is identity. Identity is a very important part of everyone. Everything you experienced, you have done in your life is what makes your identity, shapes our identity It is what defines a person and how people see that person. Without an identity people would not know what kind of person they are. The book overall is talking about how the struggle of self definition Esperanza is going through. “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 105). Esperanza has to face the fact that her every experience she had on Mango Street is what shaped her identity. The place that Esperanza has …show more content…
Therefore, she became friends with Sally so she can meet her goal of becoming beautiful and cruel. But, once she got assaulted by a guy, she started realised she does not want to be a beautiful and cruel girl. “Why did you leave me all alone? I waited my whole life. You’re a liar. They all lied. All the books and magazines, everything that told it wrong. Only his dirty fingernails against my skin, only his sour smell again. The moon that watched. The tilt-a-whirl. The red clowns laughing their thick-tongue laugh” (Cisneros 99). She started to realize the Esperanza that wanted a boyfriend, wanted to be like the other girls on the block all trying to impress boys, marrying at a young age was not the Esperanza she wanted to be. She saw how men treated women like dogs being kept on a leash making them do everything they say. As of there she is unsure of who she is. Eventually, Esperanza decides she does not need to set herself apart from the others in her neighborhood or her family heritage by changing her name, and she stops forcing herself to develop sexually, which she is not fully ready for. She is finally accepts her place in her community and decides that the most best way she can define herself is as a writer. “Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty
Esperanza was a little girl who always felt like she was destined to have more than what she had, which, quite frankly wasn’t a lot. She
CM: At first, Esperanza’s mental image of herself changes as she feels more confident with who and how superior she feels while walking in the heels.
"She sits at become afraid to go outside". The leave home, she would need permission. She evolves from a victim of child abuse to a slave-like wife. Esperanza sees this despair throughout her story.
Growing up as a child in a poor family, Esperanza Cordero was very ambitious. She was ashamed of her family and her house, and she always had dreams of one day having a beautiful house on a hill, with flowers all around. A house she wouldn't be ashamed to point to and say it was hers. She knew
The vignette “Beautiful and Cruel,” conveys the impact it has on Esperanza. In this vignette, Esperanza feels that she is “an ugly daughter” and “the one nobody cares about” (Cisneros 88). She does not need, or want, a man to lead her life, unlike the women she knows. She does not need, or want, a man to make decisions for her. Unfortunately, she still feels the pressure to look gorgeous and stunning: “Nenny has pretty eyes and it’s easier to talk that way
horse. Being born female in this year brings bad luck. This surely gave bad luck to her
Throughout the course of Mango Street, Esperanza’s relationship towards her house change. As time passes her feelings about the house itself change and the emotional impact of the house of her changes as well. Esperanza’s house on Mango Street symbolizes her Mexican culture. For so long she has wanted to leave it. She envisions a different type of life than what she is used to - moving from house to house. “this house is going to be different / my life is going to be different”. One can look at all the things she envisions - the "trappings of the good life" such as the running water, the garden etc. as symbols for the new life.
In conclusion, we know that Esperanza’s negativity of herself begins to slowly change as she slowly experience what accepting means and how she began to accept where she was from . Throughout this book, Cisnero showed us accepting is an important part of growing in life as well as determining the true you. In the beginning she hated her life always wanted to escape out of Mango Street versus the end she says she is going to come back. From the beginning to the end, Esperanza finally accepted where she was from and how Mango Street has developed who she became
This relates to the theme of the struggle for self definition, because at first Esperanza was under the impression she could change a man, but as she’s exposed to these horrible encounters she comes to the conclusion that boys and girls live in different worlds.
Esperanza is able to look at her great grandmother and realize what she does not want to become, but also she realizes what she does want: to become a strong, independent woman.
Esperanza showing hatred toward Sally indirectly shows how Esperanza has matured. All in all, Esperanza Cordero’s lack of innocence and gaining of knowledge develops her into a more mature character.
“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” (The House on Mango Street p.98) As a person matures they learn new things about themselves and develop their identity. People mature through certain experiences they go through and the issues they personally face. In Esperanza’s case as the novel progressed she changed and matured. Identity changes drastically as a person matures, through point of view, conflict, and setting the author of The House on Mango Street convey’s this.
Esperanza is a shy but a very bright girl. She dreams of the perfect home now, with beautiful flowers in their luscious garden and a room for everyone to live in comfortably all because of the unsatisfied face the nun made that one afternoon--when she moves to the house of Mango Street. She thinks it’s going to be a “grand house on a hill that will have a bedroom for everyone and at least three washrooms so when they took a bath they would not have to tell everybody.” (Cinceros 4) Reality is so different for her when her dream is shot down in a heartbeat when she
She discovers that her aunt has found her a job matching pictures with negatives at the local photofinishing store. Esperanza has to lie about her age so she can get the job with her Aunt Lala. Esperanza starts to feel more comfortable as she has someone to eat lunch with. He says to Esperanza that “I please him with a birthday kiss” (55). She says she would but he grabs her faces, kisses her hard and does not let go. This is Esperanza’s first real sexual experience that she has. Esperanza has her first crush with a boy named Sire. He has a girlfriend named Lois who doesn’t really know much. Her parents tell that Sire is a punk but that does not keep Esperanza from wishing she could “sit up outside late at night on the steps with sire/ or from wondering what it feels like to be held by a boy, something she so far has only felt in her dreams” (72-71). This is Esperanza’s first experience of jealousy to finding the missing pieces of a puzzle to her identity. Esperanza sometimes worries that she is unattractive and that her looks will “leave her stuck at home” (88). Esperanza’s mother by saying she will be more beautiful as she gets older. Esperanza is faced by getting judged on your self-image. She wants to be like the “femme fatales” in movies, who drive men crazy and refuse them instead of waiting around for a husband to take her away. Esperanza’s mother complains that how she could have done something with her life and about how
As more and more thoughts are introduced, we begin to see what separates Ezperanza from the rest of the residents on Mango Street. When Ezperanzas mother implies that she will become more proper as she becomes older, she is implying that Ezperanza will be ready for a husband. However, Ezperanza separates herself n which she sees the jailed feeling that comes with marriage. (63)