“Visibility” in Childhood Gives Rise to Better Outcomes in Later Life, Displayed Through Literature Impoverished youth are more likely than their wealthier counter partners to suffer from neglect and abuse, not just from family members, but also from society organizations like the education and health systems (“Poverty and Child Neglect”). Being overlooked by the community they live in is detrimental to a child’s social, educational, and sexual development. Ralph Ellison’s novel, Invisible Man, follows a young man from the end of his high school education to his adult life. Throughout the novel we see the narrator’s sorrows and struggles of growing up without a strong support system. Sandra Cisneros’ short novel, The House on Mango Street,
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They both are from families living near the poverty line and both of them experience social turbulence because of their race. They are not considered kids who are thought to become much. Even still, they both have dreams of achieving something more than the people who live in their neighborhoods. Although their backgrounds are fundamentally a lot alike, by the end of each novel they end up in very different places. This is predominately because Esperanza felt visible to those around her, whereas the narrator in Invisible Man was, on the whole, …show more content…
A simple example of this is when she playing dress up with her friends she is able to see her legs change from childlike with scars to long and seductive. When she received attention from older men in her neighborhood, she was able to take off the high heel and return to being more childlike. In a much more profound sense, she knew that becoming a Latina writer would make a deep impact on those around her, which is why she states she would come back for them (Cisneros 110). At the very end of the novel, Esperanza said, “I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn’t belong… We didn’t always live on Mango Street,” which is the opening line to the novel (Cisneros 109). This directly addressed her feelings towards Mango Street. It wasn’t that she did not like her family or the friends in her neighborhood, but rather she felt like she did not belong there. Because of Esperanza’s visibility, she presumably was able to create her own pathway out of Mango Street and onto somewhere where she felt she
They both are from families living near the poverty line and both of them experience social turbulence because of their race. They are not considered kids who are thought to become much. Even still, they both have dreams of achieving something more than the people who live in their neighborhoods. Although their backgrounds are fundamentally a lot alike, by the end of each novel they end up in very different places. This is predominately because Esperanza felt visible to those around her, whereas the narrator in Invisible Man was, on the whole, …show more content…
A simple example of this is when she playing dress up with her friends she is able to see her legs change from childlike with scars to long and seductive. When she received attention from older men in her neighborhood, she was able to take off the high heel and return to being more childlike. In a much more profound sense, she knew that becoming a Latina writer would make a deep impact on those around her, which is why she states she would come back for them (Cisneros 110). At the very end of the novel, Esperanza said, “I like to tell stories. I am going to tell you a story about a girl who didn’t belong… We didn’t always live on Mango Street,” which is the opening line to the novel (Cisneros 109). This directly addressed her feelings towards Mango Street. It wasn’t that she did not like her family or the friends in her neighborhood, but rather she felt like she did not belong there. Because of Esperanza’s visibility, she presumably was able to create her own pathway out of Mango Street and onto somewhere where she felt she