Rhetorical Analysis Of The House On Mango Street

The theme of a patriarchal society where beauty is a weakness and having too much of it only means darkness is very prominent in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Esperanza, the protagonist of the numerous vignettes, highlights how this affects the young women on Mango Street.

In the chapter “Boys and Girls”, Esperanza describes herself as “a Balloon tied to an anchor” (9). In general, Cisneros utilizes this metaphor to show how people need certain motivating factors to push them towards success. If they do not have these factors, they cannot move forward or up like the balloon which results in them being stuck. Basing it upon this, an interpretation can be made stating that Esperanza describes herself as wanting to move upward towards success and a better life but is being held down by certain factors or anchors. To begin, Esperanza is being held down because of the responsibilities she has. Nenny who she considers one of her responsibilities rather than a sister or a friend weighs her down because she always follows Esperanza around and “comes right after [her]” (8). Esperanza also feels held down due to Nenny because she spends most of her time with Nenny but she cannot “tell [her] secrets” or say “jokes without [her] having to explain them” (9).

Sandra Cisneros is a Latin originated American female writer. However these obstacles, she became a writer, surely one of the first female of her ethnicity. In THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, she explores her own past through the eyes of Esperanza, a Latina youth growing up in the Barrio in Chicago. In this novel, she engages the readers through a variety of different literary devices such as Imagery, Personification, and even Simile.

Through countless stories and the motif of women sitting by windows, Cisneros ratifies how draining it is to be an average woman in Esperanza's community. In The House on Mango Street, women by windows depict women trapped by their families, specifically their husbands, maturing into a disturbing image that portrays the failure to be an individual that makes her own decisions. In the vignette “Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut and Papaya Juice on Tuesdays,” the author tells of a woman who is “too beautiful to look at,” saying, “Rafaela who … wishes there were sweeter drinks, not bitter like an empty room, but sweet sweet like the island, like the dance hall down the street where women much older than her throw green eyes easily like dice and open homes with keys” (Cisneros 80). Rafaela is yearning to be able to leave her home like the women she envies. She compares the bitterness of her fruit drinks to the desolation and seclusion of the house, and wishes the drinks were sweeter, expressing her looking out the window and longing for something more in life, like the fortunate few women in her community have. A character Esperanza knows named Sally has received abuse from her father, and when she gets married, Esperanza says, “She says she is in love, but I think she did it to escape” (Cisneros 101) and, “She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission” (Cisneros 102). Sally tried to get away from her father’s physical abuse, but in doing so, she is now living the life of a woman by the window, a

When a character is exposed to an incident in which his or her perspective is forever changed, he or she will gain knowledge and maturity. An event such as being raped is an example of how one can lose his or her innocence. The House on Mango Street leads the reader into analyzing his or her own life. It shows how Esperanza’s pure view of life has changed to become a more sophisticated and realistic one. Growing up is something that everyone, at one point or another, goes through. This loss of innocence is something that is unavoidable and irreversible. When people lose their innocence, they gain maturity and gain knowledge. When a person losing the pureness in them, they open their eyes and they are able to see the world for what it really

Throughout the novella, The House On Mango Street, author Sandra Cisneros conveys Esperanza's ideas and thoughts through her everyday surroundings. The metaphors in this bildungsroman exploit Esperanza’s maturity growth from start to finish. Without these metaphors, it would be a significant challenge for the reader to comprehend and connect with Esperanza. Cisneros demonstrates the themes of the evolution of thinking and personality through the metaphor of balloons, trees, and bums.

The family’s new home is located in the center of a crowded Latino neighborhood in Chicago, also very similar to the up-bringing of Cisneros. Chicago is important to the setting of the story and to understanding the underlining meanings, because Chicago is a city where many of the poor areas are racially segregated. As soon as she arriving to her new home Esperanza promises herself that she will someday leave Mango Street and have a house all her own, a house which resembles the American dream, white fence, and huge yard. During the year covered in the novel Esperanza matures significantly, both in a sexual and emotional manner. The novel as it is broken into chapters, short stories, almost charts and illustrates her life as she makes friends, develops her first crush, and endures sexual assault. The charting of Esperanza life is mainly done through the stories of many of Esperanza’s neighbors. The stories giving a full picture of the neighborhood and the life which Esperanza is living on a day to day basis. It’s interesting because many of the stories, specially of the women in Esperanza’s neighborhood, allows the reader to assume that the lives of these women, which include abuse, male dominance, and lack of freedom are all possible outcomes and paths of Esperanza’s future. After moving to the house, Esperanza quickly becomes friends with Lucy and Rachel, two girls whom are also Mexican-American and who live only across the street from her. Lucy, Rachel, Esperanza,

In her observations of her new community, she learns who she wants to be and where she wants to go. The novella often shows the struggle to find your own identity when one is established for you, and are left to battle the stereotypical expectations that are given to you. Esperanza fights from giving into societies expectations for letting them choose your identity and choose what actions you take to find yourself. The reader experiences her maturing alongside with her, contrasting between who she was and who she is becoming. She matures from her innocent, naïve kid to a smart, independent and confident young woman. Growing up is like a tree, you are born with roots and eventually try different things and branch out to find

In life, one gets inspired by others, which can also weaken their ability to live their own life in a personal-unique way, but in most case it makes their lives better. In the novella, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, women and their roles are discussed. Esperanza is a 13 year old girl that questions her life in many ways. She is not proud of who she is or where she lives. When facing discouraging events, she sees who she is as a person. Esperanza has a variety of female role models in her life. Many are trapped in abusive relationships, waiting for others to change their lives. Some are actively trying to change things on their own. Through these women and Esperanza’s reactions to them, Cisneros’ shows not only the hardships

In the beginning, the writing style Esperanza has is one of a younger aged girl. She writes about simple things or things she just doesn’t realize are wrong. A good example of this is in the chapter “Hairs.” In this chapter she is making connections between her family’s hair, because at a young age you make connections to and write about simple things. “But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day...,”(6). This quote shows how her writing is simple and full of imagination. Children often fantasize and this is exactly what Esperanza is doing. Another example is out of the chapter “Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin”.

She also showed her emotions towards her house and it was clear she did not want it and was trying to escape from it.“The House on Mango Street “is about a hispanic girl who is 12 years old in the beginning of the story. The book itself is a collection of vignettes and short stories but it helps the narrative be more descriptive and expand our knowledge on Esperanza’s

In the novel “The House On Mango Street,” Sandra Cisneros shows the themes identity, family, and the house, through Esmeralda’s experiences. She demonstrates the theme of identity by telling the story of Esperanza, the main character, and how she finds out what identifies her from others. Cisneros reveals that Esperanza’s family helps her feel like she belongs to the house on Mango Street and not left out. The house is an important theme of the novel because it helps Esperanza to look back and have a past that she is proud of by living in that house and overcoming many hardships. The themes in the novel “The House On Mango Street,” are identity, family, and the house.

Though Sandra Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street” brings up several aspects of young Esperanza’s internal conflict, her discovering what comprises her identity is the most prominent point throughout the story. While the reader watches a young girl grow up, they also watch her question all of her observations that shape her perception of herself. As she deals with life’s harsh reality in her low-income neighborhood, the hardships she faces make her question who she really is, and what defines her.

Sandra Cisneros’ famous novel, The House on Mango Street, deals with a variety of themes and the one that stands out above all is how discrimination is tearing apart communities. The main character is Esperanza, a young latina girl struggling to not feel out of place in society and even her own home. Throughout the vignettes, one can see how much of a fight there is, not only for latinos, but for the poor and other oddball characters as well. Esperanza writes about her experiences in a lower class society and the men and women she meets along the way that are tackling the world’s expectations in the same way. This theme is mostly expressed within three vignettes: Boys and Girls, Geraldo No Last Name, and No Speak English.

The decisions a person chooses to make greatly affects their lives and changes them. In the collection of short stories, The House on Mango Street, the author, Sandra Cisneros focuses on the life of a young Hispanic girl named Esperanza Cordero who gradually changes and matures through the experiences of gender discrimination, sexual orientation and countless more living on Mango Street. Esperanza's transformation from a young and innocent girl to a mature woman is displayed through her self-realization and experiences that help Cisneros reveal how one's own experiences can lead to the discovery of their identity.