The house on mango street

 

General:

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read.
2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid clichés.
3. Describe the author's tone. Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthen your understanding of the theme and/or your sense of the tone. Include three excerpts (for each element) that will help your reader understand each one.


1. Esperanza is a 12 year old Chicana who lives in Chicago with her family in Mango Street. Across the street she has her two friends Rachel and Lucy. Throughout the book Esperanza is waiting for her turn to leave from the small crowded city so that she can live on her own. Esperanza is growing up in this neighborhood during one of the most critical times in her life. She is beginning to change physically and emotionally. Luckily she has her friends to be there for her. After she starts to change, she is interested in boys and finds a friend who shares the same interest. But this friend, Sally, only uses guys to escape the reality that she is being abused by her own father. Although Esperanza is not very fond of this, she still hangs out with Sally. In one occasion, Sally leaves Esperanza alone with a group of guy friends. She is abused by them and their friendship is ruined. Reflecting back on her experiences Esperanza realizes that as ready as she is to leave Mango Street she cannot fully leave it behind because it has become a part of her. Esperanza uses her writing to begin to heal emotionally over everything that she has been through.
2. A theme of the novel was to find who you are. Esperanza struggles to define herself since the beginning of the novel. To start with, Esperanza wants to change her name without realizing that it is an expression of her family heritage and culture. When she meets Sally, she observes the way she is around men and then wants to be desired and cruel so that men will not intend to hurt her. After having her offensive encounter with a young group of men, she no longer wishes to be desired and cruel. Because of this experience she once again is confused and she does not know who she is. As she matures more and more she realizes that her main interest defines her. Writing is the way that she is able to define herself.
3. In the beginning of the novel the author is very pessimistic about the events occurring in her life. The author is pessimistic about living in a small segregated neighborhood where she feels that she cannot get out. Being that her family is very poor she does not have very much hope that she will make it far in life. Towards the end of the novel, she begins to be more optimistic once she finds herself. Through her negative experiences, she then turns them into life lessons in her writing
4. Diction: The author writes to us about her life with every day speech rather than making it seems like a historical event.
Parable: The author tells small stories of herself or others in which she learned a lesson. Like when she was stuck in the situation with the group of guys she had learned her lesson about wanting to be desired and cruel to men.
Allegory: The author is a representation of a Chicana with the struggle of “self definition”.
Juxtaposition: The author and her friend Sally are complete opposites and have opposing personalities. While Sally is a girl who is very open to the world of men and finding her way through using them, Esperanza is innocent and new to the experiences which Sally has already been through.
Catharsis: The author writes about the scene where Esperanza is abused by the group of boys by exposing her feelings of post traumatic feelings.

Characterization:

1. Describe two examples of direct characterization and two examples of indirect characterization. Why does the author use both approaches, and to what end (i.e., what is your lasting impression of the character as a result)?
2. Does the author's syntax and/or diction change when s/he focuses on character? How? Example(s)?
3. Is the protagonist static or dynamic? Flat or round? Explain.
4. After reading the book did you come away feeling like you'd met a person or read a character? Analyze one textual example that illustrates your reaction.


1. Indirect: we can tell the type of person Esperanza is by the way she reacts to situations. Esperanza is easily influenced. For instance, her Uncle Nacho helps her realize that she is beautiful by dancing with her on the dance floor. All that he wanted to do was to make her feel better about herself. She is easily persuaded.Direct:The kids of Rosa Vargas kids are wild and crazy. Alice doesn't want to have to work all of her life because she wants to have tome to herself to live a little. I think that Sandra Cisneros uses both direct and indirect characterization to have different variety of characters to have dramatic effect.

2.When the novel involves Papa it changes things a lot because Esperanza isn't used to seeing her father like this. She is surprised that he would cry because in the mexican culture the men are suppose to be tough and not cry. So i found it interesting that her father is cry and she was shocked that he was crying.

3. The protagonist is a round character. Ever since the beginning of the novel she knew that she wasn't going to stay there for every. She always picture her self getting out o there. At the end she says it again but this time she doesn't care what people will say about her decision.

4. After reading this novel I come away feeling like I have met Esperanza . I found it easy to relate to her because of our Mexican backgrounds. I could see where she is coming from and why she wants to leave so she can have do more for herself in life.