Shame in Sandra Cisneros' the House on Mango Street

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, over a half million people are homeless in the United States. Although Sandra Cisneros, the author of The House on Mango Street, had a house, she felt like she was still homeless and contributed this feeling to the main character. In The House on Mango Street, a Latina girl named Esperanza talks about experiences and people that appear in her life while living in a worn down house in Chicago on Mango Street. Cisneros uses a variety of literary devices to highlight Esperanza’s perspective on herself and others around her. The literary devices being focused on are character comparisons, allusions, figurative language, and sensory detail.

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.

Throughout the novel, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, we see the main character, Esperanza, overcome several obstacles in her life and evolve as the novella progresses. Esperanza feels empowered by many things in her life, but most often we see her use her writing as an empowering vehicle for her escape from all of her troubles in her day to day life.

Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street tells the story of a young, teenage, Latina girl named Esperanza, living in the late twentieth century. Esperanza takes her readers through her life and adventures through each chapter of the novella where each time she learns something. She faces the troubles of racism, friendship, and strange neighborhoods and most importantly, figuring out how she wants to spend her life. Through her race and wealth, Esperanza has created her identity as a shy, poor, and ambitious person.

In the book “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros we are advised the story of the protagonist Esperanza over a sequence of short scenes. Esperanza is a adolescent lady who moved out of her old home along with her parents into a new area called Mango Street. The new house is not what Esperanza wanted, she anticipated a big, white, provincial house with a backyard. Rather, she got a tiny, red, recap apartment in a Latino area in Chicago. It is a coming of age story where Esperanza blooms in many attitudes, all over the whole book we appreciate she wants to move out of Mango Street into her own house. One of the complications that Esperanza faces is the experience of shame. This happens through House on Mango Street, Rice Sandwich, Bums in the Attic, and Monkey Garden; the first three have to do with her despise of the new house. In the scene Rice Sandwich, Esperanza ambitions to eat in the canteen with the other “special kids” rather of having to walk back home to make lunch. She asks her mom to write a letter to the nun who is the principal of the school, she doesn't accept the letter as the grammar was amateurish and asks Esperanza where she lived.

“The House on Mango Street” was written to explain the lives of a family living in poverty in 1984. Coming from Esperanza’s point of view, this book gave her siblings and friends an idea of who the real Esperanza was and what her priorities were. In this book, Esperanza moves from city to city, house to house, with her family hoping for a real house. When she gets to the house on Mango Street, it is not what she expects. She meets new friends and has some crazy experiences. This book has many societal standards but, the most important three are responsibility, happiness, and fitting in.

But when she saw the house that they moved into, it was not what she had expected. In the book, Esperanza says, “But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in. There is no front yard, only four little elms the city planted by the curb. Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller between the two buildings on either side. There are stairs in our house, but they’re ordinary hallway stairs, and the house has only one washroom. Everybody has to share a bedroom-- Mama and Papa, Carlos and Kiki, me and Nenny.” (Cisneros 4). By reading this, the reader can see the parallel between the house and Esperanza’s struggle with her identity. Esperanza expected her house to be this beautiful, huge, almost mansion-type place, whereas in reality it was a small house, with not much inside. Just like that, Esperanza wants to be this amazing, strong, confident, prolific writer, whereas she does not even know who she is yet. Like the house she imagined, she wants there to be so much to her, but now, she is like her house on Mango Street with not much to her that she has discovered

In Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, Cisneros uses metaphors to characterize the people and conditions on Mango Street. In Mango Street, poverty and gender inequality frequently hinder women from escaping Mango Street and the abusiveness of their households. Furthermore, Mango Street’s women often find themselves trapped in the expectations of marriage and subservience because society reduces their value to the basis of their beauty. Esperanza realizes the corruption of gender expectations unlike the other women of Mango Street however. Therefore, she refuses to subject herself to social standards and she decides to remain independent instead. Through metaphors, Cisneros characterizes the social standards of marriage that burden the women on Mango Street and she characterizes Esperanza’s determination to escape her circumstances.

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

Esperanza, the main character of The House on Mango Street, revolves around her teenage confusion to find her identity, but also becoming a strong and independent woman. She is very observant, and in order to form this foundation, Esperanza is influenced by the people around her and always looking for pathways to follow, through examples displayed within her neighborhood. She doesn’t want to throw her life away through marriage, or to be helpless and pretty like Sire’s girlfriend, bringing her to discover what it really means to achieve that desire of hers. Within the novel, Esperanza tries to get herself out of that loop of the women in her life have been swirled through, by attaining a new level of feminine power to consolidate her independence.

The person that it affected the most is in fact Esperanza’s mom as it is shown that she quit school just because she was ashamed of the fact that she did not have any nice clothes to wear to school. This is shown even more thoroughly as she even warns Esperanza that shame is a bad thing because it keeps people down and that she should not ever feel shameful since she knows how it was like to be shameful and how badly it affected her life. One more character that appears to be shameful of leaving her apartment room is someone who we really do not know a lot. This is the woman that is very fat and is said to have been brought to Mango Street by her husband and she also brought along a child. We then learn that she does not know any English and that she does not leave her apartment that much showing that she could be shameful of the fact that she does not know any English but no one really knows the reason why.

The House on Mango Street In the book, The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros shows us many examples of women through the eyes of a young girl named Esperanza. Esperanza constantly sees the negative side of society standards toward women. Being pressured to marry from her culture and community; Esperanza questions her future and concludes that she wants to be independent and not rely on a man for happiness. Cisneros suggest to the reader that being a women doesn’t define your future and who you are. The author shows us how very few people that don’t rely on a man with Alicia .Cisneros

In Sandra Cisneros’ “The House On Mango Street”, Esperanza was faced with multiple struggles while living in her house on Mango Street, the theme of gender roles and expectations formed Esperanza in a negative way. From the beginning Esperanza never felt that sense of belonging in the neighborhood because she felt like she wasn't like others in the neighborhood. Almost all of the women on Mango Street had expectations on relying on a man to keep them successful. Yet Esperanza conforms to these expectations of being a women in Mango Street by learning from other girls in her community’s mistakes. This forms a jittery feeling for Esperanza to remain independent. The expectations of being a woman in Mango Street are powerful because most of the

In a neighborhood like hers there is a lot she sees on the daily that she does not understand so she puts it on paper. Writing is an outlet for her where she escapes being trapped on Mango street and she goes to a different reality where she is on her own in her own home. Not only are poems a way of expressing herself, she also “shares a poetic connection with her aunt Lupe” (Garonzik 3) who encourages her to keep doing what she loves which is writing. Esperanza’s personal life was the perfect circumstance that would feed her the imagination, she needs to become a better writer. All her life her parents have been telling this unrealistic story of how they would win the lottery and move far away to a better house and better life. Of course Esperanza knew better, but that gave her more creativity to jot down and steer her in the direction of becoming more involved in her writing. As she grew up, her hobby turned into a career that not many people believed in. But she kept writing and her experiences when she was young and still living on Mango street gave her more to write about now that she had a better understanding.

Change is an inevitable process that derives from experience, time, and growth. In Sandra Cisneros’ novella, Esperanza is a growing female who conflicts with poverty, sexuality, and identity. The main character begins by conveying that she is a person that lacks self definition and wishes to be liberated from her community. However, as time progresses, she transforms into a woman who decides to become selfless and give back to her community. The author reveals that the loss of innocence due to one's experience is the main cause for maturing.