English 2000 Perspectives in Literature

The different homes represent their lack of money. It represents the instability Esperanza feels in her life. It represents her not having a true childhood, where she met the other kids and got to know them. When the nun had asked her where she lived, and reacted as though with a negative connotation, she learned to feel ashamed of where she lived. She learned that she didn’t like others looking down on her or her condition. The wish for a “real house” is her want of security, and her want to be stable financially and socially. When we’re younger, our upbringing dictates how we will interact socially. When you are brought up moving from home to home, you learn to not get comfortable where you are. When I was younger, and we moved for the last time, I actually refused to unpack for a week. Seeing as to how we kept moving, there was no point. I imagine that Esperanza didn’t feel the same way I did, because she actually kept making an attempt. She held out hope for the real home; I only unpacked because my mom pink promised we wouldn’t move for a while.

The condition I have experienced from the list on page two in White Privilege : Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack is number four “I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.” Most of the time this isn’t a problem because I shop mostly where other people of my race or other “minorities” shop at, but the problem comes into play when I go shop in the more “whiter” neighborhoods and shops. I don’t get judged or followed because of my skin color, it happens because the way I dress and talk and music I listen to, they automatically know that I “don’t belong” and give me dirty looks or rush me to buy and even have gotten to the extent where I was pulled out of the store by my hoodie because the manager said “I was taking to long looking around.” My reaction was to go to the police officer that was in the pizza shop next door and report the guy but even the cop didn’t want to do anything and I assume because the two people I was with and me looked like we didn’t belong. I ended up calling my uncle who is Deputy Inspector in the NYPD and got the cop and the store owner and employees in trouble. Its not fair to judge people because of any reason because you never know who they are or who they know

I saw a similarity between “The House on Mango Street”  and “Giovanni’s Room” in the exert “Linoleum Roses”. One reason why is because of the theme of flight. Sally leaves home to escape the abuse and oppression from her father. David leaves home to escape his sexuality. Sally will just enter another life of abuse. David will still be surrounded and haunted of his homosexuality. Second similarity is the symbolic use of the room. Sally is described within a room unable to do anything without sit inside, not even look out the window. She uses this room to hide from her father she had left. To hide the past, but little does she realize, this room will only bring the same pain. David uses this room to hide himself or hide from himself. In Giovanni ‘s room David will act in every way he had tried to leave behind. Though we begin to see the change of David realizing he had imprisoned himself with his fears, he will only escape into another room to find the same fears and problems. We are left to imagine that perhaps one day Sally will reach the realization. Sally can also be compared to Giovanni’s use of the room to hide from his history in Italy. Giovanni builds himself a cave where he feels his past can’t find him and in essence this is what Sally tries to build for herself.

In The House on Mango Street, the concept of a “real house” has a deeper meaning than simply the text itself. The family fluctuated between apartments and each apartment seemed to not suit the family. The narrator explains the conditions of the previous places his family had lived in, and it seems that getting a “real house” would mean finally moving up in life and living comfortably. When a nun asked the narrator which house he lived in, the response wasn’t too pleasing, “You live there?”. This made the narrator want a real house. A house that they could be proud of, a house that was “like the houses on T.V.”. The idea of a “real house” represented much more than just a place they lived in. It represented a dream, a social status, a better life, and a house that could be completely their own.

-Carlos Lema

The stories “Sally,” “What Sally Said,” and “Linoleum Roses” contribute to our understanding of sexuality and gender roles by showing how religion and beliefs have on genders.  An example of this is in “What Sally Said,” when Sally is speaking of her father hitting her.  It seems like Sally’s father is trying to prevent her from repeating past mistakes from his family.  But in the process is abusing his daughter, and people do not seem to care and say anything about it.

In “Linoleum Roses” when you hear of Sally getting married before eighth grade you come to think of how people would arrange marriages.  Sally seems to be happy with what she can do with the money he gives her but at the same time scared because her husband can get abusive as well.  She is not allowed out and cannot see her friends unless her husband is not around.

With all the stories Sally is depicted as a sex figure yet she is isolated and caged up like a bird.

                 The stories about Sally in “Sally” and “Linoleum Roses” contributes to our understanding of sexuality and gender roles by demonstrating a heterosexual lifestyle with females being perceived as sexual objects.”The boys at school think she’s beautiful because her hair is shiny like black raven feathers and when she laugh, she flicks her hair back like a satin shawl over her shoulders and laughs (Cisneros  81)”. The boys and the men  in this culture(or even in society today) see women as sexual, lustful objects that are beautiful to look at and to treat as they see fit.

        This perception  also contributes to the inequality and subjugation of women in this culture and society. Women are seen as inferior to men. They are under their control; they are even married off very young to older men and confined to being a housewife.” Except he won’t let her talk on the telephone. And he doesn’t let her look out the window. And he doesn’t like her friends, so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working Cisneros 102)”. He controls very aspect of her life and she is required to obey him.  I think the text’s position is that women shouldn’t be treated this way. they should be treated as equals because they aren’t inferior to men. They are also more than just sexual objects and they have more worth than that. I think these stories contributes to the ideas about what is considered attractive and it shows the gender inequality between men and women.

In the house on Mango Street we have Esperanza a very young character that is not to mature. She had just moved in to rough neighborhood because her parent bought a house around there. She writes a lot of stories to express her self and talk about her problems she has on Mango Street. She reminds me a lot like Sal from On The Road. Sal never moved from on place to another permanently, but he constantly moved around to escape something. He also loves telling stories about his adventures that he would have on the road. Esperanza does not go to California but she does go around her block a lot and has many adventures. She expresses that one day she will leave Mango Street and that people will ask about her. She doesn’t miss where she came from but she is not entirely in love with where she is right now. Similar to what Sal in a way, he leaves when he doesn’t feel that he confortable at even when people around him don’t want him to leave.

“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”. McIntosh is explaining what most of us believe when we hear the word “Racism”, that it is an act of “Meanness”. For example, a colored person cannot drink from the same water fountain as a whte person because s/he is black. However, that is not the case; McIntosh is stating that it’s an “invisible system conferring to dominance on my group”. It is a system that is used to show dominance in one group, for example, going through high school you are taught that the greatest explorers/leaders are white. This indicates that no other race is more powerful and keps the standard for the “white” race at a very high level.  An “invisible system” that I have encountered, which gives dominance to the white population would certainly be the school system. For exAmple, in middle school I was given materials that spoke highly of Christopher Columbus and all of his achievements but no materials on how he tortured and enslaved the natives in the places he landed.

In the House On Mango Street, Cisneros wrote about the dream of a “real house” meaning not just the structure of a house but having the feeling of a comfortable steady home. A “home” in this novel seems to be somewhere nice with no problems and to have no worries. Yes i think the houses in The House On Mango Street represents something more than just a structure in which family lives, because a structure can be having a roof over your head and being able to eat atleast a meal a day. Cisneros wants a life that is comfortable, a home that comes with less worries, being that his family is less fortunate.

The concept of “home” functions in this novel meaning by a place where a family can live in a normal, healthy lifestyle. An affordable shelter a family can have a place of their own only. Due to the fact Esperanza and her family are always moving one place to another, they couldn’t stay in one area. She strongly wishes and dreams to find a place where she can called it her home. The house in the text does represent something more than just a structure itself. It is a place of origin, either born and/or raised. A home where holds memories, stories, conversations/events, and heredity line within its walls. It is more meaningful than the physicality of a house; it’s more onto where a member of a family can go back to. Because it is where he/she once resides before moving into their anew life.