...As girls grow into women they are raised to fall into a cookie cutter mold created and established by males from years past and continued by the current men within a female’s life. Often the girls do not know that they are being subjected to this role out of innocence and ignorance of knowing nothing else. As girls grow into women who grow into mothers who grow into grandmothers their purpose in life is laid out to them by men within a predetermined role made up of the oppressed domestic housewife. This role often constitutes the women to be a submissive creature to the male figures in her life. This assembly line of sorts makes it easy for these women to never question why this is all that can be given to them. Why do they accept this domestic submissive role? Do they realize that this role is holding them back or have they just learned to accept the role? Within this essay I will be looking at this mass production of submissive roles produced by men, specifically I will be analyzing the coming of age novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Within this novel the main character Esperanza Cordero moves from the country side of Mexico to an urban city in America in search of the American dream. She makes this move with her family when she is a young girl and as she...
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...Comparative Essay: gender roles in The House on Mango Street and Annie John Question 3: To what extent do male and female literary characters accurately reflect the role of men and women in society? In this essay I will analyse to what extent the characters in the novels The House on Mango Street (text A), by Sandra Cisneros, and Annie John (text B), by Jamaica Kincaid, reflect the role of men and women in society. These two novels criticise patriarchal societies, where “women are taught to think as men, identify with a male point of view and to accept as normal and legitimate a male system of values…” . In both of them, there are clear examples of chauvinism, which conditions the lives of Esperanza Cordero, a “Chicana” who lives in a Latin neighbourhood in the USA called Mango Street; and Annie John, who passes her childhood and part of her adolescence in Antigua, an island in the Caribbean which until 1981 was a British colony. In the following paragraphs, I will describe and analyse diverse illustrations of patriarchal society seen in both novels. These examples will be used to explain male and female roles in this kind of society. Firstly, both societies are more permissive with men than with women. In this way, males are allowed to act freely, while women are constantly being judged for their actions. In text A, we can notice Rosa Vargas’s situation. As the text says, “she is the only one against so many […] [and] cries everyday for the man who left without even...
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...The House on Mango Street The House on Mango Street portrays a young Latina, Esperanza Cordero, dreams, hopes, and plans for the future. This coming-of-age novel has her growing up in Chicago with other Chicanos. But she is determined to do better for herself and her family. At the beginning of the book Esperanza is ashamed of the house she has. When people look at it she feels embarrassed that it is the place that she calls home. She wishes that she could live in a "real" house, one that she would be proud of. The house that her parents promised her with a green yard, real stairs, and running water with pipes that worked. She dislikes the house on Mango Street because of its sad appearance and cramped quarters are completely contrary to the idealistic home she always wanted. "I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn't it. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go."I totally understand her feelings. I was embarrassed by my neighborhood. I would tell people I lived in the “ghetto”. My mother would get mad because it wasn’t true. We lived in a very nice two-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nowadays, people would kill to live in that location. At the end of the story, Esperanza knows she is going to leave The House on Mango Street, but she also realizes that she is going to come back because it did play a huge role in her childhood and...
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...The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, centers on Esperanza struggling to define herself in a way that will differentiate others she observes on Mango Street. Esperanza’s observations of the women of Mango Street, as they are all trapped in some way or another, is what drives Esperanza to want to be independent. Throughout the book Esperanza struggles with the idea of self-identification and differentiating herself from those in her family and neighborhood. Esperanza's first defining moment is when she decides to rename herself. She claims the name ZeZe the X and wishes she could shed her name which belonged to her great-grandmother. She believes her name carries too much baggage due to her great-grandmother being forced to marry...
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...Reading Response: The House on Mango Street The various allusions to children’s stories and popular culture in Sandra Cisnero’s The House on Mango Street portray a shift in the feminist paradigm toward publicly rejecting the societal conformations to gender roles, specifically those of women, and also function well in providing a connection between the characters of the stories and the readers. Esperanza, the main character, seems to be invested in a fantastical view of the world that she alludes to in describing her experiences and telling her stories. In the course of the development of Esperanza’s character, it can be seen that while she first admires and aspires to be the Cinderella that she feels like when the shoes given to her fit, she grows into a person that uses stories as a means of escape—her recital of “The Walrus and the Carpenter” to Ruthie—and finally, in her allusion to Rapunzel when she describes Rafaela’s marriage, it seems that Esperanza comprehends the clichéd gender roles and realizes women accept their lives as helpless objects in need of rescue. Besides these instances, various other women, such as Marin, “Waiting for a car to stop, a start to fall, someone to change her life” (27). Also, any reader who has experienced Western culture in her upbringing would either relate to and be affected by Esperanza’s changing attitude toward fairy-tales and children’s stories. Although Esperanza’s connection to such tales might be naïve and not a transformation at...
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...Simon Adelle UCOR 102 Paper 3 Professor Marcum Making It in A Man’s World April 29, 2013 “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros exposes the life of the main character, Esperanza, for one year as she struggles with trying to find her place in America as a Chicana young girl while also coming of age. The novel starts the day Esperanza and her family of six move into a house on Mango Street, and immediately she expresses her antipathy for not only the house, but also for the area in which they move into and the people around who judge them because of their ethnicity. The story is not told in the traditional format of a continuous story divided into chapters, but rather Cisneros uses forty-four vignettes to allow for the reader to fully understand why Esperanza has the struggles that she has. Along with Cisneros’ illustrating Esperanza’s looking for her identity through images of Esperanza’s thoughts and female obedience, symbolism of violence, legs, the Statue for Liberty, and Nenny, and diction of Spanish words, not using quotation marks, and a maturing tone, she also uses these them to permeate Esperanza’s desperation to leave Mango Street throughout the whole novel. Cisneros’ use of vignettes highlights important moments in Esperanza’s life that emphasize how she develops over the course of a year. Cisneros uses the brevity of the vignettes to enhance the imagery to give the most vivid image through her limited amount of words for...
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...between genres, calling her fiction, often vignettes rather than structured narratives, "lazy poems" ("Do You Know Me?" 79). Her Bildungsroman, The House on Mango Street, is read both as a young adult novel and as a work of adult fiction, and her most recent book of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), includes prose poems similar to those in Mango Street [The House on Mango Street], and longer works. Most of her fiction is composed as first-person narratives told to us by the central protagonist. She speaks for people like herself or whom she has known--Mexican and Chicana girls and women who grew up "on the borderlands." According to Cisneros, "If I were asked what it is I write about, I would have to say I write about those ghosts inside that haunt me" ("Ghosts and Voices" 73). Part of those ghosts are the myths and legends of the borderlands, which can hold women back in their quests for self-identity, or, when creatively adapted, can offer possibilities for constructing new cultural motifs. In The House on Mango Street, like Cisneros's childhood home, located in Chicago's barrio, the protagonist Esperanza says, "Mexicans don't like their women strong" (10). One could say that all of Cisneros's female characters either struggle to be strong and succeed, thus transcending culturally dictated gender roles, or are defeated in their struggle (Lewis 69). The fact that they live "on the borders," straddling two or three cultures, requires them to combine...
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...Why Minerva Opens the Door for Her Husband The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a novel about escape and identity for many characters, including Minerva, a poet. As Esperanza grows up on Mango Street, she meets many potential role models. From Rafaela to Mamacita, many of the women on Mango Street are waiting by windows. One of them is Minerva, who writes poems, a teenager trapped in an abusive relationship, with kids and her own guilt stopping her from fighting back. She writes poems to provide a semblance of freedom to herself, but never actually believes in her ability to leave. Because Minerva’s only escape from her abusive husband is inside her head, she lacks the self-efficacy she needs to break free. Minerva has only one...
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...The novel The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a young girl named Esperanza who lives in an all hispanic neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois. Esperanza is a girl who would like to live in a house of her own and live the life she want but she is anchored down by the constraints of society. The story captures the idea of how women are portrayed and their role in society. Relying on men seems like the only way to live for women. Throughout the novel, Esperanza begins to notice how women are treated by men. She notices how gender inequality is common in lives of those dealing with the injustice. Some women find that getting married at a young age is their way to freedom, others find that education is the key to their...
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...Breaking Society’s Standards in The Help and The House on Mango Street Gender roles and racist expectations have always been a problem for humankind. Since the beginning of time, these problems have occurred constantly and it has always created tension between people and their thoughts on the issue. Fortunately, there are writers such as Sandra Cisneros and Kathryn Stockett, who tell people the sides that not everyone agrees with or notices to remind them that there are human beings underneath what society wants people to believe. In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros discusses how many of her female characters overcame what others thought of them, and they followed their dreams. In The Help, Kathryn Stockett discusses how many of her female characters fell under the pressure of society, and the ones that fought back and did what they wanted to do....
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...Racism and Women in society in the House on Mango Street and The Help Acceptance, typically the idea of fitting into a certain group of people. Many people want acceptance from others, it’s what drives us to do the things that we do. On multiple occasions we find that some of our actions that we engage in are wrong or against our self-morals, but we do them anyways to fit in with the crowd. Most people become followers and forget their own morals, instead of thinking from their own perspective, they think in a way that will make them accepted by others. But not all people are like that, fortunately, people such as Skeeter in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help, faces peer pressure everyday about getting married or how she should treat certain...
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...Spiritual Paper I have a better comprehension and appreciation of the Hispanic and Latino culture, after reading the material this week. This culture has their way of communicating with one another. Within the Hispanic and Latino cultures we repeatedly see magic, religion, faith and tradition play big parts in their lives. In this essay, I will discuss four of the stories that I feel show how these elements play a part in their day to day lives. I have chosen four pieces, “Curving Woman,” by Alejandro Morales, “Seven Long Times,” by Piri Thomas, “Tales Told under the Mango Tree, “ by Judith Ortiz Cofer and last but not least, “The Kite,” by Ed Vega. Religion, Faith, Tradition, and Magic As I stated the Hispanic and Latino cultures rely on religion, faith, traditions and magic. I saw this in the writing, “The Curing Woman” by Alejandro Morales. This story is about Mr.Benidorm, the man of the house, impregnated a servant, and had a daughter. Once the servant's time had been served, she requested to take her daughter, Marcelina, with her. Mrs.Benidorm refused the Marcelina to go with her mother. “She had grown to love Marcelina and besides, the child was a reminder to her husband of his sins of infidelity.” (Morales, 1986). This nine-year-old girl spent the next four years with Mr. and Mrs. Benidorm and never seeing her mother during this time. Then at thirteen years old Marcelina saw her mother again. Marcelina’s mother taught her daughter who to heals the sick...
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...Iftekher Hossain The name of the organization is Ruposhi Bangla hair Dresser Unisex hair salon. Address: The Mission is to make money. Contact person and title: Jibon 1718 424 2531 Phone number: 1718 424 2531 Email : 1) How did you hear about this place/organization/neighborhood? I have heard about this place from my friend who usually goes to Ruposhi Bangla Unisex hair salon to cut hair and it is also my personal barber. 2) Why did you choose it for the study? I have choose to study this place because it deals with immigrants who are from many different cultures, such as, Pakistan, Indian, and Bengali, who works together to serve the Jackson Heights community, which is full of immigrant . The Jackson heights community is culturally diverse and has many different race, such as Hispanic, Indian, Bengali and Asian. So I thought it would very interesting to find out how does these people from different race and cultures come across each other’s and I also live there. 3) What do you want to learn from this project? I want to learn how different cultural people interact with each other in Jackson height community, and how do they behave toward each other’s, are they racist, are they friendly, do they respect each other’s cultural norms, values, and how do the Barbers communicate, are they only good with their own kind of people or do they treat everybody the same. 4) Do these questions relate to any themes or key concepts discussed in class? If so, which ones...
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...GRAMMAR Rewrite the following sentences according to the instructions given after each. (3 marks) (i) Njenga told me that his sister is successful. (Use of in place of that) (ii) She never came late to school last year. (Begin: Not once ---------------------) (iii) Who broke this jug? (Rewrite in the passive) (b) Identify and correct the misspelt words in the following paragraph. (3 marks) Occassionally, you will be called upon to speak in public. You must learn to do so without embarassing yourself by fumbling and making unnecessary repeatations. With adequate practice you can become an accomplished public speaker. (c) Use the correct form of the words in brackets to fill in the blank spaces. (3 marks) (i) She could not explain how the accident ______________________ (occur) (ii) The students presented their _____________________ (complain) to the principal. (iii) Jane is very bright but very poor in _________________________ (pronounced) (d) Use the appropriate prepositions to fill in the gaps. (3 marks) (i) Suddenly, the plane was enveloped _______________________ a dense fog. (ii) Inspector Chacha was an expert _______________________ catching criminals. (iii) Most of my classmates are strong _________________________ Mathematics. (e) Replace the underlined with the correct phrasal verbs formed from the words in brackets. (i) His performance discouraged me until 1 stopped teaching him. (put) (ii) No...
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...GENDER ASSESSMENT USAID/HAITI June, 2006 This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by DevTech Systems, Inc. GENDER ASSESSMENT FOR USAID/HAITI COUNTRY STRATEGY STATEMENT Author: Alexis Gardella DISCLAIMER The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. 2 Gender Assessment USAID/Haiti TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements Acronyms Executive Summary 5 6 7 1. GENDER DIFFERENTIATED DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS 1.1 Demographics 1.2 Maternal Mortality 1.3 Fertility 1.4 Contraceptive Use 1.5 HIV Infection 1.6 Education 1.7 Economic Growth 1.8 Labor 1.9 Agriculture and Rural Income 1.10 Rural and Urban Poverty 1.11 Environmental Degradation 9 10 11 12 2. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF GENDER IN HAITIAN SOCIETY 2.1 Status of Haitian Women 2.2 Haitian Social Structure: Rural 2.2.1 Community Level 2.2.2 Inter-Household Level 2.2.3 Intra-Household relations 2.2.4 Economic Division of Labor 2.3 Economic System 2.4 Urban Society 13 3. ONGOING USAID ACTIVITIES IN TERMS OF GENDER FACTORS OR GENDER-BASED CONSTRAINTS 3.1 Sustainable Increased Income for the Poor (521-001) 3.2 Healthier Families of Desired Size (521-003) 3.3 Increased Human Capacity (521-004) 3.4 Genuinely Inclusive Democratic Governance Attained (521-005) 3.5 Streamlined Government (521-006) 3.6 Tropical Storm Recovery Program...
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