A Rude Awakening Despite the fact that today we live in a nation full of opportunities for success and an upward social mobility achieved through hard work, many people want more. Oftentimes in life, people wish for things they do not have. Regardless of how hard people wish on a shooting star or on birthday candle, the wishes never seemed to be answered. Many people have felt that disappointment on their birthday when they realize that they were never going to get what they wanted. This novel demonstrated how the protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, who grew up on the mean streets of an inner city neighborhood, felt that living on Mango Street was not good enough. Her friends Rachel, Nenny, Sally, and Lucy were among the kids growing up on Mango
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Esperanza tries to characterize herself as a female individual, but with her identity changing throughout the novel, it becomes difficult. In the beginning of the novel, we start to see that Esperanza changes her name so that she can represent herself in her way, instead of going along with a name that shows her family ancestry. Esperanza decides to go with the name, “Zeze the X”. Esperanza’s motivation to change her name shows both an understanding of the influence of language and a need for her own identity. She wants to detach herself from her family in order to create a life of her own and changing her name was a crucial first step. Deeper into the novel, she becomes more sexually conscious. “In the movies there is always one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one that drives the men crazy and laughs them all away” (Cisneros, pg.89). In this quote, Esperanza is expressing that she wants to be beautiful and cruel so men will like her. Unfortunately, due to a turns of events, she is assaulted and loses her sense of identity and does not want to associate herself as beautiful and cruel. In class we talked about The National Organization of Women which was that women deserve equal pay and treatment and a work area environment free from sexual harassments. This was the response to the historic sexism evident in the U.S Society (Hortua, Class Lecture 11-13-14).
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Gender roles became introduced when Esperanza notices beauty to be a primary source of feminine power, and starts to envies beauty in her female relatives and friends. She soon learns that it is a double edge sword, what comes with admiration, comes with being hurt. Towards the end, she starts to explore a new path that gives her a new found independence. Esperanza decides to detach from her family and the name given to her to discover a sense of identity. However, she soon disassociates herself as beautiful and cruel to only find herself lost and unsure of who she is. The final view that Cisneros shows is a sense of home. Esperanza’s hatred of where she lives plays a huge factor on her denial of ever living on Mango Street. She explains how her house is not a home and does not ever want to return to Mango Street despite the fact that Alicia says that Mango Street is her. Cisneros created the character Esperanza to show the readers that every once in a while one person can be different, and try to make their life better and the lives of others
Esperanza tries to characterize herself as a female individual, but with her identity changing throughout the novel, it becomes difficult. In the beginning of the novel, we start to see that Esperanza changes her name so that she can represent herself in her way, instead of going along with a name that shows her family ancestry. Esperanza decides to go with the name, “Zeze the X”. Esperanza’s motivation to change her name shows both an understanding of the influence of language and a need for her own identity. She wants to detach herself from her family in order to create a life of her own and changing her name was a crucial first step. Deeper into the novel, she becomes more sexually conscious. “In the movies there is always one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one that drives the men crazy and laughs them all away” (Cisneros, pg.89). In this quote, Esperanza is expressing that she wants to be beautiful and cruel so men will like her. Unfortunately, due to a turns of events, she is assaulted and loses her sense of identity and does not want to associate herself as beautiful and cruel. In class we talked about The National Organization of Women which was that women deserve equal pay and treatment and a work area environment free from sexual harassments. This was the response to the historic sexism evident in the U.S Society (Hortua, Class Lecture 11-13-14).
The idea …show more content…
Gender roles became introduced when Esperanza notices beauty to be a primary source of feminine power, and starts to envies beauty in her female relatives and friends. She soon learns that it is a double edge sword, what comes with admiration, comes with being hurt. Towards the end, she starts to explore a new path that gives her a new found independence. Esperanza decides to detach from her family and the name given to her to discover a sense of identity. However, she soon disassociates herself as beautiful and cruel to only find herself lost and unsure of who she is. The final view that Cisneros shows is a sense of home. Esperanza’s hatred of where she lives plays a huge factor on her denial of ever living on Mango Street. She explains how her house is not a home and does not ever want to return to Mango Street despite the fact that Alicia says that Mango Street is her. Cisneros created the character Esperanza to show the readers that every once in a while one person can be different, and try to make their life better and the lives of others