Preview

House On Mango Street Book Report

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
743 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
House On Mango Street Book Report
At the beginning of the story, readers learn about a girl named Esperanza whose life has always been unstable and has always been moving from house to house constantly.

Benumbed by all the hardships she’s had to deal with Esperanza longs to live in a beautiful house of her own.

Children in Esperanza’s neighborhood never play with the opposite sex, and the only friend Esperanza has is her little sister, whom she is ashamed to be seen with.

Discouraged and degraded, Esperanza goes through life labeling herself as being uglier than everyone else; the only way she can make a friend is by giving two girls called Rachel and Lucy, five dollars to buy a new bike.

Esperanza likes the way her name sounds in Spanish, but dislikes her name in English, she is always ashamed to tell people her name.

Frozen in a life of poverty, Esperanza befriends a girl called Marin, who dances under streetlights at night and dreams of a man to marry her and take her away to live in the barrio.

Gullible foreigners who get lost and travel to Esperanza’s neighborhood always fear getting assaulted because of its appearance; only the inhabitants of the neighborhood know the truth about everyone who lives there.

Hopelessly meek, Esperanza always allows people to run over her mentally and emotionally, she only says yes to all the negative comments said to her by Rachel, Lucy, and the Superior Sister at her school.
Inspired by her own life a girl named Alicia whose mother has died, overloads herself studying, going to school, and taking the role of a mother for her siblings and father in order to escape the life of poverty that seems to be destined for all Latino families.

Jumping and playing, the neighborhood kids all look at clouds to entertain themselves with, one kid even calls a cloud he sees God,

Kinky and grown, the girls receive a pair of high heeled shoes that fit them all perfectly; these shoes cause the girls to be warned about trouble, and cause them to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Connecting the snoring, the rain and Mama’s hair is to give the scene a calming and cozy atmosphere. This section of “Hair” compares all the safe and comforting things in Esperanza’s life to convey that when she experiences them it makes her feel secure. This is similar to a security blanket that children have as a baby, they hold them to feel safe when their parents are not close or all the time. Esperanza expressing that her mother’s hair comforts her, shows how close she is to her mother because just looking at her hair makes her feel safe. However, this was not the case for many children in Esperanza’s position, numerous parents would have financial and marriage problems at the least and when the stress would build up, they would take it out on their children. Many children needed something like Esperanza’s mother’s hair so that they would feel safe without looking for another more harmful way to distract themselves from the pressure of their daily lives. Furthermore, Esperanza was extremely fortunate because her parents loved her and was for the most part safe at home. The effect of linking Esperanza’s father’s snoring, the rain and her mama’s hair on the audience was to create a soothing ambience and take a break working about growing up and the dangers in that process. This chapter was the most serene chapter so far in the book because she is talking about peaceful things in her life. On the contrary, the other chapters (so far) have been discussing growing up and the pressures of developing into a woman/adult. The author wanted to discuss these pleasures to take a break from her troubles so that the story would not become dark. In conclusion, the author wrote the book like how Esperanza lived and thought, she was constantly reminded of the troubles of maturing, but had reminders, like her mother’s hair, that would ease her stress and remind her it was…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    was her first day. Esperanza didn’t actually think he looked very nice. But she knew she couldn’t tell by their looks!…

    • 708 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In this passage from The House on Mango Street Esperanza shows her dislike for her name and wishes that she had a different name. She and her great-grandmother both shared the same name, and Esperanza did not want to have the same fate as her. She says “I don’t want to inherit her place by the window”, she does not want to be sad and feel trapped and not able to do anything with her life. Her great-grandmother did not want to marry but once she had she ended up being sad. Esperanza is trying not to be like her great-grandmother and become trapped and sad.…

    • 106 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The house they bought was all messed up and had too many defects to count. Esperanza is disappointed but it doesn’t put her down from making friends. She has dreams of having a bestfriend that is not her sister. She doesn’t…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza is the main character in the book “The House on Mango Street”. She started off as a naive girl that doesn’t know anything about the real world she lives in. As time passes she learns more about herself and the world around her. Another major character in this book is Sally. Sally was born into a harsh family where her father will beats her. Sally was always trapped by her father until one day she marries a man that treats her just like her father but, she doesn’t notices.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "Esperanza. I have inherited [my great grandmother's] name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." Young Esperanza's opening thoughts in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street begins with the introduction of a surprisingly insightful disadvantaged Hispanic girl named Esperanza, who has just moved into a poor Latino neighborhood. Esperanza's opening remarks foreshadow a theme that continues to develop throughout the entire novel, cumulating piece by piece until a complete puzzle is produced. As Cisneros' Mango Street chronicles an emotionally pivotal year in the life of a young girl, the author herself presumably draws on personal experiences of being raised in an environment in which she struggles and feels like she does not belong. It is evident that Cisneros creatively expresses her own experiences in her writing, and goes so far as to dedicate the book "a las Mujeres," or to the Women. Though not purely biographical, striking similarities of race and background exist between the author and narrator such that Cisneros…

    • 1599 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    As the result, Esperanza wrote about her whole life and this novel is like the diary. This book is very interesting and important because Esperanza is like keeping her diary and wrote about her life. These paragraphs written about Esperanza’s ages from she was young to older and whole life. I would guess that her novel is furtive for her…

    • 560 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As well as Esperanza, she also likes writing, she enjoys writing. “You just remember to keep writing, Esperanza. You must keep writing. It will keep you free, and I said yes, but at that time I didn’t know what she meant,” (61). As an adult, Esperanza’s aunt, has more experience than Esperanza has. She knows how important it is for a woman to have freedom. Esperanza didn’t understand what she meant when she was young, but she realized that now. She understood keeping writing can make her happier; can make her feels free just because she can write all the things down that she thinks about.…

    • 494 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    She would be so much better off if she kept walking past her abusive household and to a place where “nobody could make [her] sad and nobody would think [she’s] strange because [she] likes to dream and dream”(83). Next, Marin, Esperanza’s neighbor, stands “under the streetlight…waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life”(27) instead of going out into the world and making changes herself. The way the women of Mango Street live dissatisfies Esperanza. They have either accepted the way their lives played out, knowing that they cannot escape, or simply wait around for a miracle to take them out of their situations. Her own family is no exception. Her mother “could’ve been somebody” with her “velvety opera voice that speaks two languages” but instead, became a housewife after her “shame [kept her] down because [she] didn’t have nice clothes” (91). Her great grandmother, and namesake, was once a “wild horse of a woman” before her husband threw a sack over her head and “carried her off…as if she were a fancy chandelier”(11). Esperanza has inherited her relative’s name, but does not want to inherit her place by the window, where her great grandmother “sat her sadness on an elbow”(11) and looked out, watching her life pass her…

    • 795 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza and her family moved around incessantly from one apartment to another. They moved so much that Esperanza can’t even name all of the places she once lived. She had a tremendous dream of her…

    • 727 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Living in poverty and women being oppressed by men is a common a theme one can see. Esperanza dreams of having a house she can call it home. Women have dreams where they wish they could be something more than just a housewife that is stuck in an endless cycle. Esperanza has a friend who tries to be two things at the same time. Alicia is a woman who has barely started to study at a university. Her mom has died and she is now the one that has to wake up early to do things her mother would do. Her father is not encouraging of Alicia being something other than a woman who has responsibilities at home because that is a woman’s place. Alicia is someone who, “doesn’t want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin...she studies all night..is afraid of nothing except of four-legged fur. And fathers” (31-32). Alicia is a young lady who is determined to continue studying even without the approval of her father because she wants to be more in life than someone with no further education. Complications like acting as a mother, does not stop her from pursuing something she desires even if she is afraid of her father who presumably wants her to quit going to school. Alicia does not want to be overpowered by men that tell women what to do and if having to deal with housewife duties and studying all night to get what she dreams, then she must undertake those…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Meanwhile, Esperanza has made the wish that she wants to move out and get a new house, one lady tells her something that kept Esperanza thinking about her identity. Furthermore, the elderly appraises Esperanza that she should never forget what she lived on Mango Street because it is what is constructing her and it will always be a part of Esperanza’s personality. After these words were spoken, the author says, “They all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy and made me feel ashamed (Cisneros 105).” Conversely, Esperanza is revealing a change in mind where she realizes that she is so busy trying to identify who she is that she forgets that the situations she is living in the present are the ones building her character (Cisneros).…

    • 580 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The first stuggle that latinos have to overcome when they come here is the language barrier. Something that mamacita in "No speak english" does not understand. Mamacita is a women who doesn't want to change her lifestyle to the american way. She only knows a few words and like many latinos no speak english is the main thing she says. Esperanza believes that "she doesn't comes out because she is afraid to speak english". Many latino immigrants go through the same thing. If it's not…

    • 1041 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    make the Chicano fir into its culture and make him follow its way of doing things. The…

    • 452 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In chapter six Esperanza gets to her new home. She isn’t very happy with the living conditions. I can’t imagine living in some place that was like a stable. Then when Esperanza is told that she would be responsible for sweeping and taking care of the babies I remembered that when she said that she could work earlier that everyone laughed. This is probably not going to go well. She had never taken care of anyone or anything before. She didn’t know how to wash clothes or to change diapers or how to sweep. She was too proud to admit that she didn’t know how to sweep so she just acted like she knew what she was doing. She was determined but she created a big mess in front of a large group of women and Marta. This part reminded me of the movie The Princess Protection Program. In this story a girl who was a princess is put into a “normal” life where she is expected to work and go to school. In both stories the girls start without knowing how to take care of themselves and are humiliated in front of a large group because of their lack of knowledge. In the Princess Protection Program the girl learns to take care of herself and ends up helping others. I hope that things work out the same for Esperanza.…

    • 660 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays