Esperanza's Instagram

                                                                               The House on Mango Street

The instagram posts I made reflect the three themes in The House on Mango Street: Family, Womanhood, and Security. Esperanza Cordero is young girl living with her big family on Mango Street. She is the eldest of many children. She loves her family dearly and looks up the chaos of having a large family endearingly. The first post reflects this love. The second post shows Esperanza as a young girl on the verge of puberty. Throughout the novel, she slowly explores her sexuality. This photo shows the uncertainty of adolescence and the desire to know more. The third post is of Mango Street. The place Esperanza can never truly leave. It is forever in her heart. Mango Street, the most memorable of her living situation, stores her memories, her heart, and a piece of her soul. You can take the girl out of Mango Street, but you can’t take Mango Street out of Esperanza.

The House on Mango Street: Category 2 Prompt C

I decided to create Sally a twitter account for this assignment.

As her profile picture I wanted to find a picture that made sure she still looked like a young girl, but at the same time I wanted her to look older than her age.  I decided that this profile picture suited my needs because I feel like it emphasized these features.  I chose the header because the last time we see Sally is after she gets married and I think this was a big development in her character since this was the only way she would escape her father.  I decided to username as xoxoSally13 because Sally seemed like a flirtatious character later on in the novel.  I think if she had a twitter account then she would have had something like this in her name.  I also think that the x's and o's are appropriate for her age.  For Sally's bio, I kept it brief.  I think that Sally would have been one for keeping things short and simple.  I think her personality was just of a girl dreaming of falling in love and escaping her abusive father.

Throughout the book, Sally is compared to her aunts because her father does not want her to turn out like them.  When Sally's father beats her for talking to boys, I think Sally would have reflected on how she is her own person and not just like her aunts.  If she had a twitter account I think she would vent through social media like this.

I think that despite her father's abusive nature towards her interest in men, I think she would have posted about her love interests on twitter.  I think that Sally would have been happy and giddy about the potential of falling in love.  I also felt like she would have needed to brag about the attention she got from men in order to make herself feel better about herself.  

I think that Sally would have romanticized the idea of being married.  I think that she would have bragged about being married to her friends (and followers) in order to set her self apart from them.  I also think that Sally would have needed to reconfirm these feelings within herself.  To convince herself she was better to be married than living with her father.  I think she will not miss her father, but she will miss some of her friends, like Esperanza.

I think that Sally's marriage had a lot of negatives, but I do not think that she would ever reveal that to her followers.  I think she would have kept that to herself and tried to focus on the positives, such as getting to buy things for her house and own stuff.  The last tweet is in regards to if anyone ever told Sally that they all thought she got married to just escape her father.  I think Sally would see this as people accusing her of not loving her husband, even though she says she does.

After Sally got married, I think she would have followed Marriage Goals because I think she wanted to live a successful marriage.  I think she would have followed pages emphasizing her hispanic culture and she would have kept in touch with Esperanza since they claimed to be friends.  I also think that she would have still considered Chicago her home and would have wanted to keep touch their.  Lastly, I think she would have followed True Love Stories, because I think Sally was overall a romantic who wanted to get away from the tragedies in her life.  I think she dreamed of being whisked away by a man and falling in love. 

Overall, I think Sally is an interesting character in The House on Mango Street.  I think her life was drastically different than Esperanza's life and I think that she was a character who wanted to escape her father more than anything.  I also think that Sally was the way she was because her father thought the only thing she was capable of was chasing boys and shaming the family.  

Esperanza's Escape

1. Pick one passage that embodies the main concern (theme) of the novel. Write a close reading of the passage exploring how it negotiates the main concern.

“She looked out the window her whole life, the way so any women sit their sadness on an elbow.  I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be.  Esperanza.  I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” pg 11

    I felt this passage epitomizes the theme of the novel because early on it sets the tone of the book and gives us an idea of how motivated Esperanza is to leave Mango Street.  Esperanza desperately wants a better life than she has.  She is a free spirit and her name means hope, and she exudes it. She describes herself as “A  balloon tied to an anchor.”  She articulately describes the woman in her life who have little to no power over what happens to them, and she vows her life will be different.

Growing up as a Latina Esperanza tells of the hardships and how women had their place.  She mentions in the above passage “Was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be?”   I believe she is acknowledging women need autonomy from men, something to call their own.  She is explaining women can have as much potential as men, if given the opportunity.  Many of the women Esperanza comes in contact with end up trapped (figuratively and literally) on in the inside looking out.  They were promised a wonderful life, but ended up in either an abusive relationship, abandoned with children, or controlled by their husband.  Esperanza has her writing and she believes this is her ticket off Mango Street.  As she gets older she realizes as much as she tries to leave Mango Street it will always be a part of her drive to be successful.

House on Mango Street: Marin: the Not so Independent, Independent Woman

The House on Mango Street has a theme of sexuality vs. autonomy. Throughout the book, Esperanza dreams of having her own house like the one her parents told her she would eventually get. She eventually realizes that if she wants to get her dream home and get out of the neighborhood, she would have to do it on her own. This leads her to resist men. In addition, there are other parts of the book that imply that her ticket out of her neighborhood is a man. In the chapter, Marin, the theme of sexuality vs. autonomy is on display. The first paragraph says, “Marin’s boyfriend is in Puerto Rico. She shows us his letters and makes us promise not to tell anybody they’re getting married when she goes back to P.R. She says he didn’t get a job yet, but she’s saving the money she gets from selling Avon to take care of her cousins.” Marin having a secret boyfriend that she plans to marry when she goes home shows that she is focused on boys and love. Conversely, she has a job and he doesn’t. That shows that she is quite independent and is a hard worker. The next paragraph displays the theme of autonomy vs. sexuality even more. It says, “Marin says that if she stays here next year, she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone on the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.” In the first paragraph, we established that Marin is quite independent. In this paragraph, she talks about getting a job which confirms that independence, but then she talks about wanting the job because she would get to look beautiful and wear nice clothes. The term "look beautiful" implies that she does not think she looks beautiful now and devalues the autonomy she already has. In the end, she outright states that she wants to attract a man to rescue her. The idea that she can be as independent as she is and still desire to be rescued by a man shows that she attributes autonomy to dependence on someone in a better situation than hers. She even encourages Esperanza to sit on the porch just to attract attention later in the chapter. Her solution for leaving the neighborhood is the opposite of Esperanza's desire to do it on her own. It is disappointing because a young woman who can care for her cousins and has a job in a foreign country has more autonomy than a kept woman who has to ask her husband for money to go to the grocery store or buy gas.

Category A Prompt 4: Gender Identity in The House on Mango Street

In the chapter “My Name,” Esperanza talks about where her name came from. She was named for her great-grandmother. Esperanza talks about what it is like being a woman in her community and how she does not want to be like her great-grandmother saying, “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window” (Cisneros 11). Esperanza writes how, “the Mexicans, don’t like their women strong” (Cisneros 10). Esperanza also details how her great-grandmother was once a “wild horse of a woman” and refused to marry, but Esperanza’s great-grandfather got her to marry when he, “threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s they way he did it” (Cisneros 10). Esperanza refuses to sit by the window like her great-grandmother and defies the oppressive gender roles in her community.

Esperanza explores different ways to explore Mango Street throughout the novel. After becoming sexually aware, Esperanza rejects her sexuality as a means of escape and decides to use her writing as a means of escape and a way of helping to free the women around her as well. However, it takes time for Esperanza to reach this conclusion. Esperanza’s views on sexuality change after she was sexually assaulted. Esperanza realizes she cannot be “beautiful and cruel” and that freedom means being free from sexual relationships with men in her community. At the beginning of the novel, Esperanza is still in a childlike, almost asexual state. Esperanza knows that she is a woman and that she is uncomfortable with the way that women are treated in the community but does not really have a fully formed explanation as to why or how to change how women are treated and viewed in her community. Her identity as a woman is still being formed but is wrapped up in rebellion against her community. Esperanza knows she is a strong woman and wants more for herself then a place in a window. She wants to be the wild horse of woman that her great-grandmother was and be “so wild” that she would not marry.

Humans of Mango Street

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humansofmangostreet/



I chose to make Esperanza an Instagram account. The memoir is written in a vignette form so I thought that it would be charming to mirror the literary vignettes with Instagram posts. The account's handle is @humansofmangostreet because it embodies the various individuals Esperanza encounters on Mango Street. The quote in Esperanza's bio, "All brown all around, we are safe", encompasses the essence of Esperanza's experience as a Latina in Chicago. She, as a character, crosses paths with family and friends, all of whom have a story to tell. Thus, I created an Instagram account that hones in on the characters we read about in "The House on Mango Street."

The Instagram account was of course inspired by Humans of New York and I thought that personal statements from each of the characters would reveal the dialogue that we don't see very much of in the book.

The first individual I focused on is Aunt Guadalupe. Esperanza writes about Aunt Lupe as a strong character, and a dying woman. In the book, she tells Esperanza to continue writing (Esperanza read to Aunt Lupe because Aunt Lupe was blind) because writing sets you free. After all, all Esperanza wants is to eventually be free of Mango Street. (58-61)

The second character I dealt with is Sally, whose story is rather tragic. The 'quote' from Sally is supposed to convey the complicatedness of domestic abuse and mistreatment, specifically in the context of cultural barriers. Sally, in the book, reasons that her father's abuse is attributable to strictness of religion and cultural barriers. She is simply a character that wants to love and be loved. (81-83)

The third post is about Nenny, Esperanza's younger sister. It's a boomerang of a mango tree. Esperanza and her sister don't initially get along so I thought it would be very sister-like for Nenny, a younger sister to deny Esperanza taking a photograph. This post is intended to illustrate Esperanza and Nenny as sisters growing closer, but still growing closer with time.

The fourth post is a real picture of Sandra Cisneros, the author of "The House on Mango Street." I think that this post is important because it is Esperanza speaking about the people she meets and speaks to in her impoverished Chicago neighborhood. At the same time, Esperanza states that she wants a place of her own, which is an obvious theme throughout the book.

The Monkey Garden on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street
Category A Prompt A

Safeeyah Iverson

 A passage that I would argue embodies the main concern of the novel would be the chapter on the monkey garden. I would consider the primary theme of The House on Mango Street to be the transition from adolescent to adulthood, a theme that is explored thoroughly in the text. Although it not explicitly stated how old the protagonist, Esperanza, is, her development is trackable through the subject of the chapters which grow increasingly more complex and mature as the book advances. The Monkey Garden chapter could then be seen to represent the moment where the character becomes aware of the separation between adolescence and adulthood and the chapters before and after it are markedly different.

 The Monkey Garden is initially representative of childhood, existing as a playground of sorts, an idyllic junk yard where the youth of Mango Street can hide away, quite literally. Esperanza talks about wanting to run through the garden “fast as the boys, not like Sally who screamed if she got her stockings muddy” and when she tries to convince Sally to join her she is told to “Play with the kids if you want”. Here a clear distinction is made between the kids who jump from broken car to broken car and hide within the wild flowers and weeds of the garden and the teenagers who stand by the curb sharing “a joke I didn’t get”. 

This discovery of a game unlike the ones Esperanza has played before, a game where the boys create the rules, presents the first clear distinction of power, placing it in the hands of the males. Prior to this chapter, although Esperanza has witnessed many moments of the power dynamics and interactions between men and women, it has existed separate from her immediate universe. This game of kissing between Sally, Tito, and her friends is entirely different from anything that she has witnessed from her peers before and she is immediately alarmed. She doesn’t understand her alarm, only has this understanding that “something wasn’t right”. She attempts to get help for Sally from Tito’s mother, who is apathetic to Esperanza’s alarm at the situation, understanding and recognizing it where Esperanza is unable to.  She attempts to rescue her friend, innately aware perhaps that something is shifting and afraid because of it. When she attempts her rescue however, she realizes that she has misread the situation, describing that they “all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy and made me feel ashamed.” This is the moment where Esperanza is aware of her own immaturity and so also the moment that she begins to mature. She feels displaced by the experience, that her feet “seemed far away. They didn’t seem to be my feet anymore: and that the garden which “had been such a good place to play didn’t seem mine either”.

Female Identity in The House on Mango Street

Category A Prompt D

 Michelle Milvain

Rachel, you are prettier than a yellow taxicab. You know that?

But we don’t like it. We got to go, Lucy says.

If I give you a dollar, will you kiss me? How about a dollar. I give you a dollar, and he looks in his pocket for wrinkled money.

We have to go right now, Lucy says taking Rachel’s hand because she looks like she’s thinking about that dollar.

While there are so many different examples of identity issues within this novel, I chose to highlight the issue of female identity. This issue is exemplified in the chapter entitled, “The Family of Little Feet.” Esperanza and her friends are entranced by these beautiful shoes that they received as hand-me-downs, and wear them all around the neighborhood. They enjoy trying to walk, run, and play in these heels and love the feminine feel of the shoes. This femininity, however, is a double edged sword in this novel because they receive negative attention from men while wearing the shoes. A drunk homeless man even attempts to pay one of the young girls to kiss him in a toned-down image of what could be the beginnings of prostitution. This passage really stood out to me because it showcases the idea of victim-blaming in sexual assault/harassment based on what the victim is wearing. Rachel is propositioned while wearing the heels, and offered money in exchange for physical affection. The girls immediately know that it is wrong and have to pull her away. This section presents an interesting take on females below the poverty line, and how desperate some women can get for money that they actually do consider offers such as this homeless man’s. These girls are, in a way, “punished” for embracing their femininity, as they immediately take off the shoes when they get home and hide them without ever wearing them again. Rather than blame the homeless man who propositioned her, they blame the shoes for this scary situation, which serve as representations of their femininity as they grow older. This becomes extremely relevant later in the novel when Esperanza is raped. This chapter is important in the development of female identity in the novel because it showcases the cultural norms which Esperanza is up against as she develops into a strong, independent woman. As she grows up, she begins to resist this victim-blaming culture she is surrounded by and refuses to accept that abuse is normal. She has friends that are abused by the men in their lives, and do not feel powerful enough to escape their hostile environments, but Esperanza is determined to do something bigger with her life than simply get married and potentially end up like the rest of the girls in her town. Esperanza sees how females are viewed in her area, and is determined to break that mold.

A Twitter for Esperanza by Olivia Diaz de Villegas

I decided to make a twitter for Esperanza Cordero, the protagonist of Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. I chose the handle @Chicano_Chica1 because Esperanza is proud of her heritage, but also strives to be the best and improve her situation. Her desire to move forward is represented by the “1” in the twitter handle, since she would be the first to leave Mango Street. The avatar I chose is the Mexican flag because it represents who Esperanza is in her truest essence. The cover photo I uploaded is a photo of the House on Mango Street that I found on Sandra Cisneros’ website. I posted a lot of tweets because young women tend to share their thoughts very frequently on social media, especially when they are annoyed or angry. I followed certain accounts that I felt Esperanza would probably follow due to her age and interests such as: Revista Vanidades, Revista Cosmopolitan, UChicago, Chicago Real Estate, Hope, Sally, Nenny, Chicago Tribune, and Mexico. The magazines highlight her interests in boys and looking beautiful once she hits puberty. UChicago, Chicago Real Estate, Chicago Tribune, and Hope accounts represent her desire to move forward in life. I also selected that Esperanza follow Nenny and Sally because I feel like they are the most integral relationships she forms in the novel.