The House on Mango Street Identity

Esperanza's desire to baptize herself as Zeze the X gives us an idea of her playful and adventurous nature. It also suggests that Esperanza doesn't consider herself to be easily known – just like the X suggests, there's something hidden or unknowable about her identity.

Esperanza hates her name. Meaning "hope" in Spanish, her name carries a lot of connotations – it expresses her Mexican heritage as well as a sense of waiting or expectation. And it's long and difficult for her teachers at school to say, to boot. Esperanza's name just contributes to her sense of not belonging.

How much does ethnicity play into Esperanza's sense of identity? She makes fun of white people who are afraid of her Latino neighbors, but she admits that the residents of Mango Street are just as scared to go into a white neighborhood. Do Esperanza's observations suggest that people are all really basically the same, despite ethnic and cultural differences?

The poem that Esperanza reads to her Aunt Lupe is a simple and beautiful expression of how the young girl sees herself – right now she's trapped and itching to be free, but some day she'll explode into her full potential.

Esperanza's personification of the trees outside her bedroom window is an expression of her loneliness. Not only does she feel she doesn't belong on Mango Street, but she feels like she's alone in feeling that way.

We're beginning to understand what it is that makes Esperanza feel so different from everyone else on Mango Street. For one thing, she's unwilling to conform to the expectations placed on her by her gender.

Like it or not, Esperanza has to face the fact that her experiences on Mango Street have shaped her identity. Somehow, the place that Esperanza has lived for a year has become part of who she is.

Esperanza has really embraced her identity as a writer in the last chapter of the novel. When Esperanza describes Mango Street as "the ghost," it's as if she's already projecting herself into a future in which she's moved away from her childhood home, and Mango Street is merely a memory whose pain is eased by writing.

We love the ambiguity of the phrase "I make a story for my life." Yes, Esperanza is a character who takes her life and makes a story for it – her storytelling makes her life more bearable. But she's also a fictional character in a story we're reading – her life is a story. Here, Esperanza's story about her sad brown shoes, a story within a story, highlights her identity as both storyteller and fictional character.

There's no questioning Esperanza's confidence in this statement. She's sure of herself and her calling in life – she's a writer, and she's going places.