‘The House on Mango Street’ and ‘We the Animals’
The aim of this essay is to present you with the main differences and similarities which can be found between the novels ‘The House on Mango Street’ and ‘We the Animals’ and which are the theme of masculinity, the role of the mother, and the way the procedure of aging is perceived by each main leading person of each novel. Both the differences and similarities will be presented in terms of how some specific issues are treated by the writers of these novels and developed within the context of their books. The issues which will be presented comparatively are the issue of masculinity and how it is understood by the main persons of each plot, the personalities of the mothers described in each novel and the way each mother’s character affected the bringing up of her children as well as their personality as an overall evolution, and the coming of age. So the essay will focus on the similarities of both texts in the theme of growing and aging. Both texts present their heroes’ procedure of aging. The problems and the dilemmas faced by their main leading persons throughout this procedure. The essay will also focus on examining the similar way in which masculinity is approached by both authors of both texts. Last but not least the essay will depict the similarity of both texts in giving the role of the main persons’ mothers’ great significance since both mothers of both texts appear to affect the main persons narrating the stories. In parallel, the essay will focus on the differences of both texts which are to be shown in the following fields. There is a different role each mother holds in each one of the texts. There is also a different way in which the main leading narrator of each story is experiencing the procedure of aging.
Both novels seem to develop their plot around the thematic core of their main heroes’ bringing up and growth. Both narrators in both stories share with the readers their experience of their childhood and earlier adulthood. So, both writers try to approach the issue of one’s growing up and how all difficulties entailed in one’s becoming a mature adult and going after his / her dreams can be treated with, either with great or less success.
Each piece of writing no matter how similar its topic may be, has always depicted the writer’s personal point of view as far as the issues he / she deals with are concerned. Therefore there is no possibility that two pieces of writing can ever be the same. The nice and intriguing trait of writings, stories, novels, poems or whatever written, which share a similar thematic core lies in the way that this thematic core is presented. There may be similar perspectives under which these issues are approached or totally contradictory. So the interest lies in finding out how people of the same era or a different one behave and think towards issues of common social concern.
The books which are to be presented comparatively in this essay are the novel ‘The House on Mango Street’ by Sandra Cisneros first published in 1991 and the novel ‘We the Animals’ written by Justin Torres and first published in 2011.
Differences and Similarities
At a first look, the first difference that draws readers and critics’ attention is the time these novels have been written.
The House on Mango Street has been considered to belong to the literary production of the 1990s which followed the literary movement of 1980s. This literary movement is nothing else but a revival of literature by people of usually mixed racial origins who managed to approach their audience and become popular through sharing with others the difficulties still existing in the lives of their heroes due to racial differences.
On the contrary the novel ‘We the Animals’ presents the childhood of three boys who grew up in approximately the same period of time in a poor neighborhood of New York, also coming from a mixed background as far as their racial origins are concerned but emphasizes mostly on the masculinity as experienced by boys when asked to grow up in a family and wider social environment which is highly contradictory and problematic.
Despite their difference in their year of publication both novels prove that regardless of being a woman or a man – since the writer of ‘The House in Mango Street’ is female whereas the writer of ‘We the Animals’ is a man – issues which raise social concern are experienced mostly in a same way by people. Recollection is a method of going back in time and rethinking on the experiences one lived and led him to becoming an adult. The narrative of ‘We the Animals’ is based on the power of recollection. Walking step by step with the main person of the story and living what she experiences through her narrative is what in the ‘We the Animals’ readers are faced with.
Either recollection or parallel action, both narratives not only draw readers’ attention but lead them to be totally succumbed into the plot. It is my personal point of view that every reader lives his / her own procedure of aging.
Both writers approach the procedure of aging in a similar way. Aging hurts in the meaning that it is not at all a simple procedure. It is a procedure of growing mature, of coming in conflict with people who you feel close to, in standing up for your dreams and wishes.
In both novels, the narrator of the ‘We the Animals’ realizes at the end of the story’s plot that “Everything easy between me and my brothers and my mother and my father was lost.” In other words the boy has come to realize that all this pain, hard feelings, dilemmas, disappointments, as well as puzzling moments, moments of joy, of fear, of agony, of misunderstandings, have driven him and the members of his family apart.
The narrator, the boy of the ‘We the Animals’ has grown up to a man whose future is nothing but insecure but there is at least one piece of knowledge he has gained. The hero knows that nothing comes for free in life and that there is always a share of indivisula responsibility as far as the experiences people are to be interpreted and probably reasoned.
Similarly, Esperanza, is a Chicana, a Mexican – American girl who is twelve at the beginning of the plot in ‘The House on Mango Street’. She is five years older than the narrator, main hero of the novel ‘We the animals’ but she shares with the readers her own growing up. She wants to live her life, she wants to drive her path outside the strict borders of her strictly attached to their origins racial environment. But things do not come the way she wants. She keeps on fighting and she does not give up. She keeps on till her dream comes true but once more the reader witnesses that growing up is not an esay procedure or easily fulfilled in a positive way.
As far as the role of mothers is concerned both novels raise a number of questions in the field of a family’s responsibility for her children’s prosperity and happiness. Readers actually stay with this everlasting question on how much it is a family to blame and how much is it in the hands of a mature person to go after his / her dreams. Both family backgrounds are problematic. Especially in the novel ‘We the Animals’ it is as if the title itself prepares the readers for reading the effect of the animal instincts of people onto their lives.
Both novels depict animal instincts in people’s behaviors and attitudes and show the dramatic effect that such kind of behaviors may have on people.
The figure of the mother is also a dominant figure in both novels. In ‘We the Animals’ the mother is a woman at a complete loss. She has lost control of her life. She knows she loves her children but she seems totally incapable of showing them her love. She is trapped in marriage which entails physical violence, she accepts her husband’s violent behavior probably because she seems not to be able to think of an alternative. There is a veil of fear keeping her eyes blindfolded, preventing her from breathing freely and acting the way her souls tells her to react and act. Is this fear a result of her not feeling self – confidence? Is this fear the result of her own being brought up in a solely, exclusively uneducated environment which paid no attention to the real human needs carried within the souls of people? The writer does not say but he does raise questions for readers to sleep on them.
In ‘The House on Mango Street’ the figure of mother plays another role. One can say that she does not seem as sympathetic as the mother of the novel ‘We the Animals’. Why? Because simply although Esperanza’s mother is very clever, experiences nothing similar to the violence, poverty and unhappiness experienced by the mother in the novel ‘We the Animals’, she seems to have been compromised in her lifestyle in their neighborhood because simply she does not want to risk her comforts. Her influence on Esperanza is very little and one could argue that she operates like a person who fills Esperanza with disappointment as far as her believing in people’s magnitude of souls is concerned.
Her own mother does not seem to let herself wish to fight for something better ant that may even seem to Esperanza as a mother who is not really interested in her children’s prosperity. Here the writer, Sandra Cisneros, raises another important question. What is the role of parents supposed to be? Should parents only let their children do as they like or encourage them? Or should parents even try to encourage their children by setting the good example?
Last but not least high interest is generated into the way men are presented. There are good and bad men. There are men like the narrator in the ‘We the Animals’ who manage to find their role and fulfill it at least without causing any problems to the others. There are men like his father who seem stuck to the old fashioned tradition r thought that men are supposed to be powerful and even violent if they think that it is necessary. There are also men like the ones in ‘The House on Mango Street’ who are not only treated with total indifference on behalf of women but they seem totally incapable of fulfilling their social role, their role within their families.
Works Cited
Cisneros Suzanna, ‘The House on Mango Street’, Vintage (1991)
Torres Justin, ‘We the Animals’ , Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1st edition (2011).
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