One personal experience of mine echoed in The House on Mango Street is texturism and how hair can be used as an identifier for an individual. In “Hairs,” readers learn about the personalities of Esperanza’s family by the way she describes their hair. Growing up, my mom used to call my hair “nappy.” This was usually followed by a statement that if my hair texture was “soft” like hers I could have grown it out. So when I think about it, I didn’t have a “personality” growing up because I was not allowed to express myself via physical appearances such as my hair. The vignette itself reveals a lot about Esperanza’s family through their hair, and that in itself is a beautiful thing! “Hairs” is my favorite vignette that we read so far because it speaks on the appreciation of different hair textures within one family, which I think is a beautiful thing!
Daily Archives: May 11, 2024
Raymond Carter’s writing style can easily be described as plain. Most notably, the way he conveys his story is simple. For example, in “Cathedral” his first-person narrative uses plain talk, using little metaphors or literary elements to convey the message. That doesn’t mean the story is without charm, his writing style communicates the awkward interactions and underlying emotions humans display. In contrast, writers such as Guy de Maupassant utilize situational irony and humor as literary devices to develop a sense of individuality. For example, in The Necklace, he utilized situational irony to emphasize the karmic results of deceit and manipulation- especially in cases of selfishness and narcissism.
When I was reading each vignette the one that really stood out to me was ” Hairs” by The House On Mango Street. The vignette hairs resembles a lot like my family, in this vignette Esperanza describes each of her families hair type, each hair type is resembling their personality. In my family my older brother hair is short but straight and very well styled everyday meaning is an organized person, my dad hair is short to the side and always with gel meaning his life is very put together, my mom hair has beautiful brown hair, always have beautiful hairstyles meaning she is a great sweet person. This, reminded me of how Esperanza described her mom hair., and for me my hair is mostly let go frizzy meaning lazy or unorganized at times as well as Esperanza saying her hair defined her as a lazy person. It really interest me how hair defines everyone personality whiteout actually knowing a person.
One personal experience that is reflected on Hairs, one of the vignettes from The House on Mango Street, is the variation of personalities that exists inside of a family. I like that the author used something so varied as hairs that because of textures, colors, and length is so different from one person’s hair to another. I personally identified myself with how the author explained the texture of the mother´s hairs as a reflection of her sweet and kind personality. I liked that description because that is exactly how I would explain my mom’s personality as well. Someone warm, caring and sweet. I also enjoyed how every member of the family is described just by specifying their type of hair. The main character described her hair saying that ¨never obeys¨ which made me laugh because that is exactly how her personality is.
A personal experience of mine that relates to the vignette “My Name” is usually throughout my whole life people would say like you don’t look like a Caitlin or you have a caucasian name . That all leads back to you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover . Just because I’m African American doesn’t mean my name should be crazy . Also people usually always get the spelling of my name wrong . It’s spelled “Caitlin” people usually spell it Caitlyn , Kaitlyn , Kaitlin because they are used to seeing the name start with the letter K. But to me I’m actually fine with my name it comes from an Irish origin & it means pure . Another reason why I love my name is because my grandmother who I love so much named me & she also named my twin brother whose name is Cyle . So when people in school use to make fun of my name it never really phased me I just went about my day holding my head high in strong confidence.
My attitude about fairytales has not changed much from the readings. As I grew, I began to understand that fairytales can be jam-packed with multiple meanings. When it comes to fairytales, I believe the audience chooses different bits and pieces of a story and will make that into the meaning until they re-read it at another date and will realize that there is more to the story. For example, in Snow White, you would see the Queen aging and her beauty deteriorating and because Snow White is the opposite of that she was treated unfairly. My mom experienced something like this personally, she would be overworked and treated unfairly by her family members just for being herself and now that she has her own daughter she did not continue the cycle she let my sister always shine and took care of her just like a mother should.
An idea that I was able to understand in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” that I would have missed if I had not read the article by the author is the growth of a character overtime for example I saw the grandmother as someone that’s self-centered and extremely snarky for example, “In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, “children were more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else. People did right then. Oh, look at the cute little pickaninny!” When I read this, it seems as if she was throwing shade at the kids, and the attitude before this quote she would dress up nicely and show off. Then towards the end of the reading when she was shot, she changed and started to see the Misfit as one of her children. From reading that article I would not be able to understand why she switched in an instant, she began from being selfish at the beginning to attempting to care at the end.
I would rate my ability to read and understand Oedipus the King from a scale of 1 – 10 a 3 because I am not comfortable in reading plays. I find it difficult to switch between characters, especially the chorus. To me jumping from one character to the other is not a smooth and easy transition, I prefer reading traditional books and stories, and this led to me being confused the entire time while reading this play. I did not enjoy reading this play, I was completely lost, it was not my cup of tea, but even though I did not enjoy the play, if I were to pick a character for me to play it would be Creon, because he wanted stability of Thebes!
I do have one personal experience that is echoed in the house on Mango Street, but not one of the vignettes. My personal experience is remembering how many times we moved! Each time we moved the places got a bit better. I remember how I hated to move. Till one day, my dad had bought some scratch off lottery tickets, and he asked my little sister to scratch it off. As my little sister was scratching off the lottery ticket my father started to scream, we have a winner here!!! We all had to go into the city to collect the prize, it was so exciting. I had to be 10 years old at that time and my brother and sister were 2 and 6 years old. Now that my parents won the NYC Lottery, they finally got to buy a real house with stairs inside and bedrooms for all of us. We even had a big back yard and a garage to keep the car. My parents had to add their personal touches to the house, but it was so nice and big. We didn’t have to worry about how much noise we made, or if we would have enough water to take a shower. Nobody was banging on the ceiling with a broom stick to tell us to lower our voices or tv. We finally had that house of ours dreams and we never moved again.
