In the novella The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, she uses characterization in the short story Born Bad. The characterization is directed towards Esperanza so we can see how she really feels about herself. The very first sentence in this short story expresses a lot about Esperanza and what she thinks about herself. “Most likely I will go to hell and most likely I deserve to be there” (Cisneros 58) portrays how she believes that she feels like she has done something really bad and that she will go to hell. This conveys to the readers that she sees herself as bad, hence the title Born Bad. It’s an example of characterization because the readers can now truly see how she feels about herself. Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel used to play a game where they imitate people like Wonder Woman, Batman, and then it went to real people. This shows the characterization of how bored they can get as kids and their imagination of what they can do. Esperanza used to read her aunt stories while she was sick, which portrays that Esperanza isn’t very bad, but she is nice too. “One day I read her one of my own [poems]” (60) portrays that Esperanza likes to write poems and read them to her aunt. Therefore, this characterization portrays that Esperanza has many different qualities to herself and is unique, which is part of the theme of identity.