Esperanza's 'Illusions In The House On Mango Street'

Characters Comparison/Contrast Essay Intro: Include one or more sentences summarizing each story and describing each character. Esperanza and house on mango street: Esperanza is a young girl who lives for a year on mango street and gradually grows into a mature young woman by a series of encounters and situations on her quest to learn more about female sexuality and later conclusion on rejecting sex as a form of escaping reality but rather focus on the importance of community and family. At the end of the book, Esperanza becomes a important figure for women’s help in her community and proves herself as an artist and writer through her analysis and observations through her writings.

In House On Mango Street, Esperanza is surrounded by many characters. Her family, her friends, and the other residents of Mango Street (and beyond). She learns a little bit about life from each of them and she matures quickly in this new neighborhood. The majority of lessons she learns aren’t from her mother or father, or really anybody in her family, she learns her most valuable lessons from people she meets in Mango Street.

Her mom teaches Esperanza many life lessons throughout the story. The reader learns that the mom dropped out of school because she “didn't have nice clothes” (91). The mom regrets this decision as staying in school could have let her lead a better life in a wealthier place. Esperanza quickly realizes that she wants to stay in school to move out of Mango Street. This mom is also there for emotional support when Esperanza needed it.

These problems coming to light through the many women Esperanza looks up to, drive her to rise above her obstacles, and become more than just another poorly treated woman. Despite the variety of girls in the neighborhood, one of Esperanza’s closest friends ends up being Sally, who has moved from one abusive home to the next. Sally’s father was a very strict man and she constantly disobeyed him once out of his sight. Whenever Sally is caught dressing “provocative” or acting “too old” her father decides to teach her a lesson.

This is ultimately contrasted through the progression of the book when Esperanza maturity is shown in the quote," Passing bums will ask, can I come in? I 'll offer them the attic, ask them to stay, because I know how it is to be without a house" through this quote you could clearly see the juristic growth from the beginning of the book. Esperanza grows out of her childish and arrogant state to a more confident becomes to feel more empathy towards others, showing her transformation into a confident mature women. Esperanza will even a homeless a place to stay regardless the state or how the house looks like, but

“In the meantime they’ll just have to move a little farther north from Mango Street, a little farther away every time people like us keep moving in (Cisneros 13).” This quote is a significant part of the story because it shows how Esperanza truly feels about herself and her family. She thinks that because she is poor and lives and a bad neighborhood people move away from her family. Esperanza doesn’t think very much of her or her family at all. She thinks that it is because of their race that people do not want to be near them.

Esperanza is often humiliated not only by where she lives, but also by her physical appearance, hence causing a restriction in her climb to a higher social class. Esperanza is frequently ashamed of her family’s broken-down house in an urban, poor

Esperanza and her family are always moving because they do not have much money, but they finally moved into a house on Mango Street where they “Don’t have to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise” (703). Although it sounded like a nice place, when a nun from her school saw where Esperanza lived, she said, “You live there?” (703). That made Esperanza feel like nothing and made her realize she needs a real house, one that is really nice. Esperanza wants to change her life and make the best of what she has.

The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.

Esperanza the protagonist of the novel. In the neighborhood where she lives, many people that does not know the place are afraid to get there. The fact that they would think it is a neighborhood full of criminals. "They think we are dangerous. They think they will attack them with shiny knives.

In the book, The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is portrayed as a young innocent girl that drastically changes over the course of the book. Esperanza is new to mango street and encounters many challenges but also positive experiences that she is able to take away from mango street. In order for Esperanza to transform as a human it was inevitable for her to face the struggles on mango street. As Esperanza matures throughout the novel she experiences three major developments that shape her future through the awakening of maturity, responsibility and her awakening of her interest in poetry.

“Not a flat, not an apartment in the back. Not a man’s house. Not daddy’s house. A house all my own”(108). Esperanza no longer strives to be popular, pretty or to be with boys.

Have you ever had to eat a rice sandwich? If so, you might identify with a certain little girl named Esperanza. Esperanza Cordero is the main character of the book The House on Mango Street. Esperanza exhibits many strong character traits. Esperanza is a very timid, or shy girl.

Esperanza’s house on Mango Street is not the house she dreamed on when she lived on Loomis Street, not the kind of house her parent’s talked about, not the house she wanted. Her house on Mango Street is a small, red house with even smaller stairs leading to the door. The brick are falling out of place and to get inside, one must shove the door, swollen like Esperanza’s feet in later vignettes, open. Once inside, where you are never very far from someone else, there are small hallway stairs that lead to the only one shared bedroom and bathroom. This house is just, “For the time being,”[5] Esperanza claims, for this is nothing like the house she longs for.

The people that Esperanza see have thoughts such as “they think we will attack them with shiny knives” because of their brown skin color. Then according to Esperanza, “watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake” she experiences the same thing because of the setting and their fear of what people will do to them because of their skin color. Esperanza describes it as “ that is how it goes and goes” because they realize that people have experienced the feeling of going into the unknown where they feel like they don’t belong and can relate that everyone goes through it. As a result Esperanza understands the feeling they get, she understands the people who are in her