The House on Mango Street by Cisneros Sandra - Essay Example

? The House on Mango Street The House on Mango Street The house on a mango street is a novel that was written by a Mexican-American writer named Cisneros Sandra. It was published in 1984. It is about a young Latina girl called Cordero Esperanza. The novel itself has a structure of different vignettes that are not either full stories or full poems. Esperanza narrates the vignettes using the first person present tense. The vignettes are not the same in contents; each is a story of its own with both poetic and narrative features. The novel is mainly based on a story of Esperanza’s self-empowerment and which is meant to overcome the obstacles that arise due to poverty, race, and gender sidelining. The first story of the novel focuses on the Cordero family move to a new house, the first they have ever owned. This section reveals the reactions of Esperanza concerning the location and state of their new abode. Other than this first story, the novel has other several stories or vignettes (Cisneros, 2004). This paper will give a lucid personal response to the novel. Personally, I have developed the love for this book due to several reasons, which are attached to the structure of the novel and the way in which the author brings out his themes to the light of the readers. To begin with, a reader will only feel good and say that a novel is nice if there is an element of entertainment it. Entertaining the readers is one of the major roles of literary materials. To me, there are quite a number of reasons that drove to my selection of this particular novel for the analysis. First, it has the same characters in different vignettes. The use of similar characters in different stories implies that the traits of these characters also change from one type to another as the stories continue. An example of this is the change that takes place in different characters. For instance, Esperanza in the first story, the mango street is portrayed as a young innocent girl who does not know or understand much concerning sexuality (Cisneros, 2004). Her childhood is flooded by ignorance of sex. She says that boys and girls are meant to live in completely different worlds. This is revealed in their family. The boys and the girls within the family do not freely or easily interact with one another. Interaction between the two groups only occurs when one of the parties is still underage. This part of the novel, allegorically informs the readers that the two genders were not able to easily meet or interact in any way. Esperanza does not interact with her big brothers except the little one whom she had got used to. This is one of the interesting parts of the novel. It made me imagine how such a family lived; a family where the boys and the girls lived in separate worlds with little to call communication between them. The imagination is what drives my interest and love for this book. It makes me remember certain incidences in my life, especially during my childhood days in Kindergarten. Boys and girls in my class never liked sitting next to one another, and whenever our tutor insisted, it looked exactly like punishment to us. During my early days at tender age, there was only one important closest person in my life; my only sister. She is the one who nurtured me into a grown up man, courageous to face anyone, anything and anytime. She was my childhood mentor. Esperanza closeness with her younger brother is meant to nurture the boy into a fully-grown up person with courage. Her big brothers have never been seen talking with girls apart from their sisters such as Esperanza, although this was mostly occasional. The novel using the vignettes, unveils the development process that the girl undergoes from childhood to her old age. When she becomes adolescent, she naturally begins experimentation with the power she had over the men. She receives teachings from Marin about the basics and fundamental truths about men. Her major awakening of sexuality when she and her best friend take a walk at the neighborhood on high-heeled shoes. This part of the novel is very relevant to some of the experiences that I, as well as, saw happening to my friends. Most of us, after undergoing certain tragic experiences, sternly develop negative and hatred attitude towards the causative agents of the occurrences. Often, we try hard to forget about the factors that caused the problem as much as we can. After her sexual assault, she tries very hard to forget some of the experiences she had learnt and underwent concerning sex in order to sit and concentrate on writing. She boldly rejects sex as a means or way of escape (Cisneros, 2004). From this, it is shown that her moral sense develops from intense individualism to a feeling of responsibility towards her society. Sally, Esperanza’s friend is another character that undergoes social life changes. As different chapters set in, her attitude and view towards men undergoes gradual changes. Through Sally, the author of the book has managed to reveal and enhance one of the dominant themes in the entire novel; domestic oppression. At the beginning, Sally lacks freedom to enjoy herself as a woman. However, when she gets the chance and freedom she does not hesitate to utilize it fully to learn and know about what was hidden behind boys and men that her parents, especially he father warned her from. The manner in which the stories are organized and arranged provides a good platform for the step-by-step lucid illustration for the development stages that some of the characters undergo. Another aspect of the novel that made love it is the kind of language that the author has used. Allegory in literature, not only hides the open meaning of a particular, but it also made the novel more interesting and very thought provocative. Thought provocation in literature always creates a lot of suspense on what might have or what will happen next after a given plot. The novel has a lot concerning the experiences or what most people face in the real world. First, the book teaches a lot concerning self or individual definition. Esperanza is faced with a dilemma of self-definition. She is unable to define herself as an artist or as a woman. When the novel begins, she wants to change her name so that she can easily define herself using her own terms. She is determined to do this and wants to do away with the family name, which is responsible for identity of a person in any society. This is similar to some of my many cases that I have undergone. The novel, as stated earlier, has one distinct feature that is not present in other novels. The presence of vignettes throughout the novel with the use of similar characters is an indication of excellence story telling techniques of Cisneros. This is not common with other three books in the class. The other different feature is the way in which the characters of the novel have been portrayed. The use of several vignettes in the novel has enabled Vignettes to not only tell interesting stories, but also to enhance the traits of the characters in a more successful manner compared to the other books, which only use single plot to reveal the nature of the characters. The other fundamental difference is in the way the whole novel has been structured and the kind of language that has been used in it. Several Vignettes in the novel are structured in a manner that they have lines instead of sentences and stanzas instead of paragraphs (Cisneros, 2004). The language used in the poetic vignettes literary resembles the poetic language with immense use of symbolism and imagery. For instance, the first vignette itself has a lot of poetic language in it with a lot of imagery. This is a unique writing style, and is quite distinct from several novels and literary books including the ones being handled in class. Other than the writing styles and the use of vignettes, the book has fewer characters compared to other books being used in class. Most of these characters are active throughout the novel unlike with the books we use in class whereby one several characters are left with no roles rendering them passive. The House on the Mango street has several literary devices in all the vignettes. The first device is symbol. The first symbolic figure in the book is shoe (Cisneros, 2004). It has been used to serve the purposes of evoking sex and adult and feminity images. With the case of Esperanza, the shoes serves the main role of illustrating the conflict she experiences between her independent desire and her emerging sexual attractiveness. The connection between sex and shoe is revealed for the first time when Esperanza and Rachel wear high-heeled shoes that their nei9ghbor had given to them. Later in the afternoon, the two abandon the shoes putting a claim that they are bored with them and do not want to wear them again. Interpreted, this statement means that they were bored with whore-like lifestyles and decided to go back to their normal dressing styles with normal shoes that is normal sexual behaviors. This symbol has been used in the novel to represent or enhance societal changes or youth development in the society as an important theme for the readers. Another symbol used in the novel is tree. Esperanza has been shown as a young woman who loves trees. She loves seeing them growing tall and collectively and developing into each individual tree with large back and strong root systems. Tree, in this concept, represents the development of different people in the society, Esperanza included. It shows the stages of development from childhood to old age. The House on Mango Street also has several small poems with their references. This puts emphasis on the necessity and the importance of language to Esperanza, as well as her neighbors. Some of the poems are jump-roping chants, internal rhymes, and simple. It is hard to hear some of the poems, especially those that Esperanza is reciting to Menerva and Ruthie. The existence of poetry depicts that the female characters in the novel make their lives better by giving beautiful description of the world. This normally enhances individual’s optimism on their societies. Other numerous literary devices in the novel are personification, irony, satire, rhetorical questions and juxtaposition. On reading and analyzing the novel, it is true that Cisneros had great gift in literature. She employed a lot of symbolism and other story writing devices. The above explanations show some of the areas where she displayed her knowledge while composing the cook. References Cisneros, S. (2004). The House on Mango Street. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Publishing. Read More