I am sorry I won't be there today, but here is what you will take care of.
First, you will read each of your classmates' vignettes and offer a comment on their work.
Once you complete this, you will writing analyses to post below.
First, you will read each of your classmates' vignettes and offer a comment on their work.
Once you complete this, you will writing analyses to post below.
Espanol!
Read up to the "The Earl of Tennesee," and find a quote that you feel is important or makes an impression on you, and in the comment section of the blog post, include the quote and write a brief explanation as to why this quote is significant. Why is important? How does it add to the story, theme, character, etc.?
All of your quotes can be contained in one comment, just be sure to include each chapter title from which the quote was taken.
“Ruthie sees lovely things everywhere...She’ll stop and say: The moon is beautiful, like a balloon...and she’ll point to a few clouds...” (Edna’s Ruthie, 68) This quote speaks to the prominent theme in The House on Mango Street of finding beauty in ordinary things. Esperanza and Nenny, similarly to Ruthie, do this as well, whether it be their house on Mango Street, their mother’s smile, or an old music box. Since a prominent factor in this novella is Esperanza’s search for a role model, Ruthie’s free spirit and natural happiness serves to prove that she is a great potential role model for Esperanza. Ruthie will absolutely be someone whom Esperanza admires, which will shape her development and personality as an adult.
ReplyDelete"And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mother watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by first communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school."(Chanclas, 47) This quote is a turning point in the story for Esperanza. She is finally coming out of her shell a little, and she notices that boys notice her. This quote also shows us how self concious she is, and you can see in this chapter how she cares alot about her new clothes and her pretty shoes. In the rest of the chapter, you can also see how all she thinks about after the dance is the boy who watched her dance.
ReplyDelete"Ruthie sees lovely things everywhere." (Edna's Ruthie, pg 68)
ReplyDeleteThis quote brings up the reoccurring theme we have seen in past chapters about seeing beauty in the simple things. Described in the chapter "Darius and the Clouds", the little boy describes God as something simple, something that can be defined. Many times, we believe that God is this complex being who can't be described with words, but really he is everything from the little spring flowers to the fields of tall grass. In the quote I picked, Ruthie sees simplicity as beauty which is something that can be hard to do. To be able to make something good out of nothing is a gift, Ruthie is a good role model for Esperanza because many times she has trouble letting herself see beauty. In the chapter "Gil's Furniture Bought & Sold", Nenny finds the old music box beautiful and unique and though Esperanza does to, she doesn't want to admit it. She is afraid of looking stupid because she likes something so old and individual. This is why Ruthie is such a good person for Esperanza to look up to.
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ReplyDelete“Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor.” (Boys and Girls 9)
ReplyDeleteThis quote is important in this book because Esperanza has this reoccurring feeling that she stands by herself with her ideas, almost isolated. She feels no one else in her neighborhood thinks the way she does. She doesn’t have any friends at this point in the book and by having no friends she feels like she is alone. Esperanza has trouble fitting in on Mango Street because she doesn’t have any friends. She thinks of herself as a floating balloon that is also tied down. She is trying to escape her life on Mango Street but at the same time, she can’t because she is afraid of hurting herself when she returns to the ground. Esperanza is also afraid of falling once she breaks her tie to Mango Street, which is why she keeps herself tied to the ground.
“We didn't know. She had been dying such a long time, we forgot.” (Born bad, p.61) This quote exemplifies the idea of the innocence of growing up and how nothing is ever anyones “fault” if they “didn’t know”. Esperanza has the continuing motif that she “didn’t know” or the question of “how could they know?”. There are multiple times where something bad has gone wrong, but you cant blame the person, because how could they know? It is the reoccurring feeling that she is too young and too stupid to know any better. When her Aunt Lupe died, they had no idea this was going to happen, therefore it wasn't there fault. They were too young and too innocent to be pinpointed in such a way. The children forgot that Aunt Lupe was sick, and therefore they cannot be blamed. The frequent idea of their innocence and immaturity that caused them to “forget” important ideas, shows the bad parts of growing up and becoming adjusted to the adult world.
ReplyDelete“There is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon on T.V. I know, I saw it before and recognize the music and I wish I could go sit on the plastic couch with Ernie and the baby, but now my fortune begins.” (Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water, pg. 63)
ReplyDeleteI chose this quote because I feel like it relates well to the theme of maturity that runs throughout the book. Esperanza is often times preoccupied with thoughts about the adult world. She daydreams about mature things like boys, jobs, and high heels. These adults ideas seem so wonderful to her. Although she often pushes herself in mature situations, such as with Elenita, Esperanza is still young at heart. She very much wants the simplicity of youth, but she must continue with her maturing life, referred to as “the fortune.” The irony is that the young always envy the old, but once they age, the old begin to envy the young. Esperanza faces this irony during the vignette.
Throughout The House on Mango Street, the theme of childish naivety is continuously portrayed as it is a significant element which helps the reader understand Esperanza’s character development. An example of Esperanza’s immaturity and realization of wrongdoing occurs on page 61, “We didn’t know. She had been dying such a long time, we forgot”(Cisneros 61). This demonstrates that Esperanza’s disrespect, as a result of her childishness, teaches her important lessons so that as she becomes older, she becomes aware of her behavior and can improve upon it to become an adult. Since this story is a coming of age story, it is pertinent that Esperanza makes mistakes because that is how she will learn. The recurring motif of “it is how it is”, in other words “it’s no one’s fault,” is present in this quote because the children were not predicting her death and were not purposely being disrespectful. As children, they did not fully understand the seriousness of the sick and dying, displayed in the quote, “We didn’t know.” Her realization of her obliviousness to gravity of the situation is present in several lines during the chapter, including, “It was a game, that’s all,”(Cisneros 59) “I don’t know why we picked her. Maybe we were bored that day. Maybe we got tired,”(Cisneros 60) and “We didn’t know she was going to die,” (Cisneros 61). It is also important that in this chapter Esperanza realizes the steadfast loyalty of her aunt, and her own unforgettable disrespect that she eventually learns from.
ReplyDelete"And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mother watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by first communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school."(Chanclas, 47) This quote is a turning point in the story for Esperanza. She is finally coming out of her shell a little, and she notices that boys notice her. This quote also shows us how self concious she is, and you can see in this chapter how she cares alot about her new clothes and her pretty shoes. In the rest of the chapter, you can also see how all she thinks about after the dance is the boy who watched her dance.
ReplyDelete"And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mother watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by first communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shoes, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school."(Chanclas, 47) This quote is a turning point in the story for Esperanza. She is finally coming out of her shell a little, and she notices that boys notice her. This quote also shows us how self concious she is, and you can see in this chapter how she cares alot about her new clothes and her pretty shoes. In the rest of the chapter, you can also see how all she thinks about after the dance is the boy who watched her dance.
ReplyDelete“Only thing I can’t understand is why Ruthie is living on Mango Street if she doesn’t have to, why is she sleeping on a couch in her mother’s living room when she has a real house all her own, but she says she’s just visiting and next weekend her husband’s going to take her home.” (Edna’s Ruthie, page 69)
ReplyDeleteThis quote demonstrates how Esperanza envies those who have the freedom to be independent while also revealing her naïve, childish character. The quote supports the theme of the desire to be independent. Ruthie, the object of Esperanza’s admiration, is a grown woman who spends time with the children on Mango Street. Ruthie chose a path in her life that did not include getting a job, but rather getting a husband, and with that, a house of her own. Despite her privileges and possessions, Ruthie chooses to spend the majority of her time at Mango Street. Esperanza talks about how she does not understand why Ruthie uses her independence to spend time in the place that she has to live in by force. The quote also shows Esperanza’s childish view of the world. She solely focuses on how she disagrees with Ruthie’s decisions. She does not understand that Ruthie’s decisions may have a motive.
The lines that I noticed where very importantwas, "There is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon on T.V. I know, I saw it before and recognize the music and I wish I could go sit on the plastic couch with Ernie and the baby, but now my fortune begins.” (Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water, pg. 63)
ReplyDeleteThis shows that she secretly is still a little kid and that she has a bright future in front of her. I really took notice to this quote.
“What does it matter? They never saw the kitchenettes. They never knew about the two-room flats and sleeping rooms he rented, the weekly money orders sent home, the currency exchange. How could they?” (p. 66)
ReplyDeleteThis quote, from the vignette, “Geraldo No Last Name,” strikes at the heart of this chapter’s meaning; it is about the contrast between the meaningfulness of each individual life and the difficulty of empathizing with each person individually. As humans we simply aren’t capable of fully understanding the significance of each individual life. With all its complex history and infinite nuances, another person’s existence is simply too much to comprehend, less to fully care about; we come to know summaries of other people, and as for complete strangers, we rarely even bother to try considering their significance, the fact that all other people who we pass on the street are real people with lives as long and complex and interesting and meaningful as our own. So, when Marin’s life becomes suddenly, intimately intertwined with the life of a boy she met named Geraldo when she sees it end, her neighbors and family are confused by her concern for him. And of course they are; they never saw any of Geraldo’s life, how he struggled to provide for his family back home in Mexico, living in tiny rooms and sending money home weekly. To them, he’s just a stranger who had an accident and died - too bad - and the only reason Marin has come to care about him is that she happened to be present as he died.
The quote that stood out to me was on page 63 in the vignette "Elinita, Cards, Palm, Water" ; "There is a good Bugs Bunny cartoon on T.V. I know, I saw it before and recognize the music and I wish I could go sit on the plastic couch with Ernie and the baby, but now my fortune begins.” This quote, to me, related to the theme of maturity. She is going off and getting jobs the force her to lie about her age and associate herself with others much older than herself. This quote show that Esperonza is still young and enjoys watching cartoons and other child-like things, but she does not be seen as a child.
ReplyDelete“I don’t know who decides who deserves to go bad. There was no evil in her birth. No wicked curse. One day I believe she was swimming, and the next day she was sick”(Cisneros, 59). I think this part of the vignette is important because it shows how little time some people can have in life. One day you're doing something fun like swimming and the next you're sick. I thought this also showed why do bad things happen to good people. It’s not like Aunt Lupe was a bad person or anything so did she really deserve being sick? I always think why do the most important and influential people in my life have to get sick.
ReplyDeleteA key foreshadowing takes place on page 64 in the chapter “Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water.” Here, Elenita, a “witch woman,” reads Esperanza’s future through a palm reading and tarot cards, a topic widely explored throughout the prior vignettes. Jealousy, sorrow, luxury, and marriage are all mentioned here, where are themes that are constantly revisited, whether it be Esperanza comparing herself to children at the canteen or her sister, enduring the perils of growing up, or experiencing interest in love. However, the most important line is expressed when Esperanza inquired about a house in the reading. “What about a house, I say, because that’s what I came for. Ah, yes, a home in the heart. I see a home in the heart. Is that it? That’s what I see, she says, then gets up because the kids are fighting.” (Cisneros, page 64). This is key, because it first foreshadows Esperanza’s coming of age and maturity, as this shows that it is literally not in that cards that Esperanza get the house she always dreamed about. However, Esperanza must learn to accept what she has and make it part of her identity: in other words, a home in the heart. This is a great part of Cisneros’s mission in writing Mango Street: portraying parts of her culture that are thought to be “shameful” in a new light that makes Cisneros’s culture appear colorful, desirable, and an integral part of her identity that may not have been evident before. And in comparison to other, grander houses, Esperanza’s physical structure of a house may appear disappointing, however, the memories, people, and things experienced there will inevitably make the house on Mango Street truly a home in the heart, or a place where Esperanza looks fondly. This fortune is evidently not what Esperanza is looking for, but this shows Esperanza’s current immaturity and her inability to comprehend the beauty of what she has now. She has yet to understand that very little of what makes a home is the physical structure itself, but the fond memories of growing up there, if one chooses to make the best of the beauty that is presented there. Even though Esperanza is initially disappointed, she will likely gain pride and confidence in her home, that it truly becomes an integral part of her identity.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key themes in "The House on Mango Street" is how being just in judgement is a beautiful attribute to have. While Esperanza's friends and to a degree, Esperanza herself, are more interested in growing up, Nenny is always interested in staying a child and enjoying the wonderful things in life. A similar character in the book is Ruthie. One of my favorite chapters in this book was "Edna's Ruthie" because it introduces another strong female character. An excellent example of this is in this quote, ""Ruthie sees lovely things everywhere." (pg 68). This shows just how kind Ruthie is, and also how similar she is to Nenny. Esperanza will surely look up to Ruthie later in the book.
ReplyDeleteIn the chapter "Edna's Ruthie", Ruthie asks her mother, "What do you think, Ma?" and Edna responds, "Do what you want, how should I know?" (p.68) This shows Ruthie's nature as a foil to Esperanza. Throughout these vignettes, the reader witnesses Esperanza growing up a little between each story, sometimes going through experiences that have told her that she is not ready to grow up yet. Ruthie is an example of someone who never grew up. "There were many things Ruthie could have been if she wanted to." By refusing to grow up, Ruthie gave up so much of her life. This is the author telling the reader that although there can be scary experiences while growing up, as shown in Esperanza's stories, it is worth it.
ReplyDelete