Preview

Irony of, "A Good man is hard to find"

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
587 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Irony of, "A Good man is hard to find"
Sebastian Aristizabal
Professor Daniels
Born: December, 20 1954- Currently living
Raised: Chicago Illinois. Studied in Iowa.
Family: Mexican.
School/education:
Famous works: The house of mango street, Caramelo, My wicked, wicked ways, Woman hollering creek
Characters: Mostly rights about life of a female Mexican in the United States.
Prizes: Orange prize in England
Influences: Mexican Family, Hispanic friends, Chicago Illinois.
Literary Criticism #1
Spanglish is currently recognized in Sandra Cisnero’s writings. In the beginning, Esperanza dwells with her name. In English it means hope, but in Spanish she describes it as a negative connotation she feels like she loses her identity because of the other people in her family have the same name. She believes she will become like her grandmother a crazy horse (meaning crazy in general). Which, contradicts what Hope/ Esperanza means, and fears to be like her.In the beginning a nun talks to Esperanza and scuffles when she finds out she lives on Mango Street. Even though, a nun is not economically wealthy or of a good position she still clenches when she realizes where she lives. Dramatically stating that Esperanza is ashamed where she comes from. She nods her head and says, "No, this isn't my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I've lived here. I don't belong. I don't ever want to come from here" (106). The area denies opportunities to its residents and the disrespect women around there. Residents are very macho affiliated; there is a greater amount of male dominance. She decides that she wants to be a role model so denies sex, and thinks if she leaves the area other women would be moved out also. “This is the fate of the women in her barrio that have the most profound impact on her, especially as she begins to develop sexually and learns that the same fate might be hers.” She wears heels with her friends to see how feels to be women and ran away quickly because of the attention

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    In the book “The House On Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros is a coming to age novel. It tells a story about Esperanza a latina girl growing up in the wonderful world of Chicago with her friends and family. Esperanza and her family recently have moved to mango street. They have moved around a lot in her lifetime because they are poor. Esperanza is determined to leave the house on mango street but in her latino culture most women leave by…

    • 508 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sandra Cisneros’ history, Mexican heritage, recurring themes, her influences, as well as her own views, to most people they see Cisneros as an important Mexican woman writer. Although she has been writing stories and poetry for more than 35 years, her writing style keeps developing. Cisneros is bilingual, so she incorporates Spanish words into her story as part of her writing style. She centers her writing on the theme and society of the American South-west. Cisneros uses her own experience throughout her life, her observations within her community. Cisneros had the job of a poet, a teacher; teaching creative writing in first grade, a magazine editor and this helped her influence her writing. Sandra Cisneros herself said, "The greatest influences…

    • 183 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout Esperanza’s life on Mango Street she has been criticized about her appearance by being called fat feet, ugly, and chicken lips by her neighbors in the vignette “And Some More.”(page 35- 38) She also has low self-esteem about herself because she thinks she has ugly legs like in the vignette “Chanclas.”(page 46 - 48) Some people like the Oriental man from the photography store found her very attractive, and they all kissed her like in the vignette “The First Job.”(page 53 - 55) These are some of the reasons why she decided to leave Mango Street.…

    • 294 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Esperanza Cordero is a twelve year old girl living in poverty. Her family moves to a run-down home on Mango Street in Chicago due to her parents wanting to independently own a house. The story begins when Esperanza is twelve, and continues for a year. Throughout the year, Esperanza and her friends Lucy and Rachel experience physical as well as mental changes. For the first half of the story, the girls are living as “children.” They are vulnerable to the harmful influences of society. Some times when they are susceptible to these influences is when they strut around town in high heels and when Esperanza does not notice the issue when a man kisses her at her job. During the summer time, the girls begin puberty and to become sexually mature. In…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The chapter 5 and chapter 6 and throughout chapter 8 of the book called, The House On Mango Street; represent an ethnic picture from both the past and the present of Mango Street and the surrounding neighborhood. Cathy, Esperanza’s friend indicated what the neighborhood may have been like in the past, while the two families that moved into her house once Cathy’s left were more representative of the whole neighborhood as Esperanza came to experience it. Along the Mango Street lived the black man who was unwelcome from the rest of the neighborhood, different from the people Esperanza sees from day to day. This guy race makes him so unfamiliar that Esperanza is afraid to talk to him. Cathy has shown Esperanza the neighborhood’s two cultures, Latin American and American, and two languages, Spanish and English, which revealing the new cultural makeup of Mango Street. Cathy also provided a window into how outsiders view Esperanza’s neighborhood, even though Cathy is blind to her own family’s similarities to the families around them. Cathy’s family was moving because the neighborhood is “getting bad,” a racist reason that Esperanza immediately understands. Esperanza’s immigrant family, as well as other families like hers, was, in Cathy’s family’s view, causing the neighborhood to deteriorate, and the only thing to do was to move. However, Cathy’s family did not seem to be struggling any less than the other families in Esperanza’s neighborhood. Their house, which Cathy’s father…

    • 415 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Esperanza is the main character in the book “The House on Mango Street”. She started off as a naive girl that doesn’t know anything about the real world she lives in. As time passes she learns more about herself and the world around her. Another major character in this book is Sally. Sally was born into a harsh family where her father will beats her. Sally was always trapped by her father until one day she marries a man that treats her just like her father but, she doesn’t notices.…

    • 682 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    "Esperanza. I have inherited [my great grandmother's] name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." Young Esperanza's opening thoughts in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street begins with the introduction of a surprisingly insightful disadvantaged Hispanic girl named Esperanza, who has just moved into a poor Latino neighborhood. Esperanza's opening remarks foreshadow a theme that continues to develop throughout the entire novel, cumulating piece by piece until a complete puzzle is produced. As Cisneros' Mango Street chronicles an emotionally pivotal year in the life of a young girl, the author herself presumably draws on personal experiences of being raised in an environment in which she struggles and feels like she does not belong. It is evident that Cisneros creatively expresses her own experiences in her writing, and goes so far as to dedicate the book "a las Mujeres," or to the Women. Though not purely biographical, striking similarities of race and background exist between the author and narrator such that Cisneros…

    • 1599 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    To begin with, in the vignette "Minerva who writes poems" Esperanza talks about her neighbor Minerva. She says that Minerva's boyfriend comes to visit and beats her and then she goes to her house "black and blue asking what can she do."Pg85 this displays how violence plays a role in Esperanza's experience on Mango Street because some one close to her gets constantly beaten which definitely makes Esperanza aware of the violence that surrounds…

    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    House on Mango Street

    • 832 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In 1984 Sandra Cisneros wrote the novella The House on Mango Street based on the narrator, Esperanza’s, first year living on Mango Street. A young Latino girl, by the name of Esperanza, is growing up in the suburbs of Chicago and is determined to leave her life on Mango Street in her past. In this novella Cisneros explores the effect of loss of innocence on Mango Street. The roles of women and how they treat each other is highly prominent in The House on Mango Street. Throughout Esperanza’s year on Mango Street she begins to realize that women have a responsibility to not harm each other but to help.…

    • 832 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the story, A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor is about a family whom wanted to go to a family vaction along with the grandmother. However, along the way, the family bumped into the "Misfit" and his friends. The "Misfit" is a crimina whom escape from prison along with two criminal escapees. One by one, every family member were sent to the woods to meet their deaths leaving the grandmother talking to the "Misfit" and pleading him to spare her life other than beg for her family's lives. In the end, it turned the family vacation to a murder. O'Connor used the literacy devices such as foreshadowing which gives a hint or a suggestion on a event that will most likely happen and irony which is between what actually happened and what is expected to happened. The author is trying to show her readers that everyone has their own values and opinions than others. She's having the readers understand what her views and…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Irony and surprise are common literary devices authors use to communicate their ideas when writing literary works. Irony allows the writer to suggest an interpretation that is different from the literal meaning of the words used in the text. The element of surprise allows the writer to manipulate the reader’s expectations and take them somewhere completely different. In the short stories, A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flanney O’Connor and Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood, both authors use the element of irony and surprise to engage readers and to develop deeper levels of meaning in their text.…

    • 807 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    There are countless genres of literature throughout the world. From fiction, to nonfiction, biographies and autobiographies, they are all different. Yet they all share a common purpose which is to convey a message. Some pieces of literature known as autoethnographic texts are written to illustrate the hardships of people in contact zones. Contact zones are areas in which two different cultures meet and live in very different ways. This often creates an uneven power relationship between the two cultures. One culture will almost always have a greater legitimacy and is seen as dominant. The other, in contrast, is much less significant and is seen as marginalized. A few examples of autoethnographic texts are Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomas Rivera and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. In all three texts, the protagonists are a part of a marginalized culture of Mexican Americans in the United States. In order to survive, the marginalized group must adapt and take on the ideals of the U.S. dominant culture. This presents many essential themes and gives a greater understanding of the protagonists ' lives as members of a marginalized group. The primary themes portrayed in the novels Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal, …And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomas Rivera and The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros are machismo, religion and education.…

    • 2363 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    Throughout literature there is a theme that seems to be constant, the protagonist against the antagonist, good versus evil. It is a theme that reoccurs throughout time because it provides the audience with an interesting conflict and reveals more about the true nature of humans. In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” she exposes her audience to the veracity of human nature; through various rhetorical devices and the demeanor of her characters, O’Connor reveals a new perspective on good versus evil.…

    • 1130 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    A Good Man Is Hard To Find

    • 1451 Words
    • 4 Pages

    How many people do you encounter each day whom considers themselves to be a righteous person? Do you agree or disagree with this persons judgement of their own character? Often a person might hide behind his or her religion as a justification for the actions made in every day life. Perhaps some people may decide that commiting enough positive actions can some how cancel out their negative actions, allowing them to consider themselves a righteous person. In Flannery O'Connors story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", the author challenges her readers to consider what it truly means to be a "good man" and why these qualities are so hard to find in a person.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her writing, Sandra Cisneros gives off a tone of annoyance through Esperanza’s character due to the ignorance of others in their conclusions drawn based on the looks of her neighborhood. In the vignette, Esperanza says, “Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared.” Esperanza emphasizes “those who don’t know any better” to prove her understanding of the pure obliviousness of everyone else. Those who do not know her personally or are not residents of Mango Street cannot seem to grasp that the image posed by the neighborhood is not by choice, but by necessity. Esperanza continues, “They think we’re dangerous.” Others do not acknowledge or even notice that the area is only poor. They automatically become fearful of their safety because society’s version of a safe neighborhood does not look as torn apart or as battered as Mango Street. The appearance of their neighborhood is chained to the appearance of one that screams danger because it looks so similar. Social discrimination is evident throughout this vignette because her social…

    • 672 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays