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.

In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the thematic motif of freedom and entrapment is portrayed throughout the book by stories of her home life, school life, and even life with friends.

In the first section of the book, there are two stories that she wrote that really spoke to me about freedom and entrapment. The first story I chose is Boys and Girls because it clearly conveys to the reader how trapped Esperanza is. “Someday I will have a best friend…tied to an anchor” (Cisneros 9) proves how she longs to have friends but can’t because she is a “red balloon” that is “tied to an anchor” (9). The red balloon portrays Esperanza as someone who longs to be free and float away, but is tied down like balloons usually are. Another short story I chose was My Name because Esperanza realizes that she will only be herself and is trapped. She finds out that she is “always Esperanza” (11) and that she can be no one else. In both of these examples, Esperanza is trapped and is not free.

The second section of the book has two quotes of entrapment. In the story Alicia Who Sees Mice, Alicia is trapped. Alicia is trapped because her “mama died…a factory or behind a rolling pin” (31-32) and she has to do a wife’s work in the house, but she also wants to go to college. She wants to go to college so she won’t be trapped just like her mama was. In Chanclas, Esperanza at first felt trapped, but at the end of the dance felt free. Her family is poor, so Esperanza has to wear the only pair of shoes she has to a dance with a pretty new dress that she got. She felt like “everybody [was] laughing at [her]…He watched [her] dance” (47-48), which portrays how she first felt like she was trapped, but then became free as she danced. Alicia was trapped while Esperanza was trapped and then freed.

The third section of the story is mainly about freedom, especially the two quotes I chose to put in this section. The first quote from this section is from A House of My Own. Esperanza desperately wants a house that’s “Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a…clean as paper before the poem” (108) so she can feel free. When she has a house of her own, she will feel free because she can say that it is her own house and no one else’s. The last quote is from the short story Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes. Esperanza will “one day pack [her] bags of…For the ones who cannot out” (110) and will be free and try to help the ones who are still trapped. She is free and will always be free, but will come back to her friends and family who are trapped and will always be trapped. In the third section, Esperanza dreams of being free and expresses her feelings throughout it.

The thematic motif of freedom and entrapment is in the book many times, and it portrays how we are trapped and free in some of the same situations that Esperanza is. Therefore, freedom and entrapment is a major thematic motif.

My giggles fill the air as my white shirt becomes dirty with the mud that I am rolling in. I look over at Natalie and laugh when she finally decides to get in the mud with me. Her yellow, flowery dress gave into the temptations that my white shirt had already given into.

“See? This is fun!” The wet mud gets into my hair and I lift my head up so it doesn’t get even dirtier. Surprisingly, making mud angels was more fun than what it looks like. I stopped making mud angels and look up at the sky. “Do you think our mud angels will fly up in the sky Natalie?” “What kind of question is that? They can’t fly up in the sky. There’s nothing there and they’re stuck to the ground forever. We are stuck on the ground forever, just like they are.” Natalie went back to making her mud angel, but my brain had its wheels turning. Soon, I shrugged it off and went back to making my mud angel.

Lunch time comes and we both get up and marvel at our perfect, gooey angels. “I hope they fly up into the sky.”  “They aren’t going to fly into the sky.” Natalie walks back to her parents while I stay and look up at the sky. Is God really real? Is heaven up above the clouds? My head was bursting like a gusher whenever you eat it, and the thoughts continued to spin through my mind. The mud clings to me and weighs me down, and I trudge back to my parents, still lost deep in thought.

“Sophie, we have to go. It’s time to go to church and you need to get cleaned off.” I say goodbye to Natalie and her family then get as clean as possible so I could get in the car. A few hours later, I’m in church and it still feels like the mud is clinging onto me. Tonight, we talked about sin and how it weighs the person down. The rest of the night, I didn’t listen to anyone else as I continued to question my belief.

The next day, after a lot of thought, I went back to the mud I made angels in. By this time, I believed that God is real and is the savior. I look at the mud, and my jaw dropped. The mud angels were gone.

I look up at the sky and saw a cloud smiling at me. The weight that was on my back like mud was lifted and I smiled. “Our angels did fly up to the sky!”

I know that they flew to heaven, and I know that that is where I am going to go when I become an angel like the one I made.

    My sister from another mother looks nothing like me, but boy are we similar. She is a junior while I am a sophomore. She goes to a private school and I go to a public school. Her long blonde hair is the opposite of my short red hair. Her brown eyes are very different from my blue green eyes. Her skin is tanner than mine. Her body shape is so much different than mine. The shape of her face is different. Despite all of these differences, we are best friends and I couldn’t imagine not being her best friend.

    We love to sing together, so constantly whenever she comes over we watch musicals and sing to them. We act together, and we both do our best at acting so we can be in the same play no matter what part we get. When we get bored, or when we just need some Rachel and Paige time, we go shopping and try on funny clothes. Once, we got bored in Artsviews parking lot, so we got out and began dancing and singing to Frozen songs.

    Rachel went to Artsview about three or four years ago to watch Sleeping Beauty be performed. I was Maleficent, and she came up to me and got my autograph. That same year, there were tryouts at Artsview for Beauty and the Beast. We both got callbacks, and as soon as I saw Rachel, I ran up to her and hugged her. After I hugged her, I realized that I had just hugged a complete stranger. We both made the play, and soon we became very good friends. Our friendship stays strong because we get together a lot and we have a lot in common.