Literature Analysis

1. Esperanza is a 12 year old Chicana who lives in Chicago with her family on Mango Street. Across the street live Rachel and Lucy; her two friends. Throughout the novel Esperanza shares that she cannot wait to leave the small crowded city to become her own person. She is beginning to change physically and emotionally throughout the text. Luckily she has her friends to talk to so she doesn’t feel alone. 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. They take advantage of her, and she no longer speaks to sally. 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. An important theme of the novel was finding yourself. Esperanza struggles to define herself as a character since the beginning of the novel. To begin, Esperanza wants to change her name without taking into consideration that it is an expression of her family heritage and culture.(her name meaning hope) When she befriends Sally, she observes the way she is around boys in hopes to be desired and then become cruel so that men will not intend to hurt her. After having her scarring encounter with a young group of men, she no longer wishes to be desired and cruel. As she matures more she realizes that 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 due to the challenges that she faces daily. 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 includes stories of herself or other characters in which she learned a lesson. For example: she writes about when she was stuck in the situation with the group of guys .She had learned that Saly’s ways of want and desire were wrong.

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. Indirect: We are able to define Esperanza by the way she reacts to certain 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. She is easily persuaded that she is beautiful. Direct: The kids of Rosa Vargas are wild and crazy. Alice doesn't want to have to work all of her life because she wants to have time 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 supposed to be tough and not cry. So I found it interesting that her father cries.

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 pictures herself getting out of there. At the end she says it again but this time she doesn't care what people will say about her decision.

4after reading this novel I feel that I have a connection to Esperanza, for the fact that we share the same heritage and values.