la casa de la calle de mango

Alici Who Sees mice

this is a very vsexis and contieus with the male dominance theme. It shows tat alicia is trying to get an education but father expects her to take care of hte family and cook and clean. He looks at her almsot as porperty

HIps

Esperanza acts like she knows everythign but is ironic because she is really very young and now so little

The first Job

Esperanza gets kissed by that old man ..disgusting

this brings up sexual assault

later this comes up when she is at the carnival with sally

Papa who wakes up tired in the dark

In this Esperanza begins to really take on more of an adult role

Four Skinny trees - theme of not feelign home at her own house

the trees = esperanza they both dont belong in teh neighborhood

THe monkey garden

THis is where she complelty losese her innocenc

esperanza sees the garned as a place to play while slly sees it as a plvce to expiremnt and geels grown up

big disenchantemnet for esp

 

"Your hands and feet are mangos. Youre gonna be a genius anyway" Phish (The Mango Song)

Im only a few chapters in but so fat the "house on Mango street" is very different from teh other books weve read.

The first thing that caught my eye is that the book is Dedicated "to the women"

What will this mean? 

in Boys and girls

i find it intresint how she uses the statement Red Ballon tied to an anchor - means she feels held down. By her sister? By her Race? Lack of money? No friends? a very profound statement

Cathy Queen of Cats

in this the them of mocin appears. Esperzans has moved many times now her first frind is moving away.

She says its because the area is getting bad. Its intresting how she realizes that its families like her that make the area "bad"

Birds

Birds are a symbol that reappear throughout the novel.

Taylor sees birds in the park, the odd ones that all come together because they are outcasts. She sees a bird outside the doctors window nesting in a cactus. When driving to find turtles parents Taylor sees a dead blackbird on the road. These are a few of many examples.

As each of the birds arrives in the story it always seems to fit the general mood of the seen as well as the emotions of the characters. 

Turtle and Taylor are like birds because they have both "flown from the nest." All the troubles they encounter on their journey of life are similar to the troubles birds enoucnter on their plight.

In matties appartment the bird flys in, hits the windpw, but then gets back up. This is parallel to Turtle and she has been abused and has trouble but then gets back to normal

This reminds me of Macbeth Act 4 Scene 2 which is all an extended metaphor relating to that of brids. 

Also estevan says Quetzal is the national bird of indian people in Guatemala.. Which is a BEAUTIFUL bird we saw it in Costa Rica.

BEAN TREES

When i first started reading the book i thought the girl was entirely joking. I doesnt seem real that someone could actually could inflate a tire too much, get blown over an oil sign, and live to tell about it. At the begging of the book it seems like shes in the middle of nowhere. I got that feeling much more then i did when reading montana. I enjoy following taylors adventure and how eager she is to find herself. She is not the type of person i usually interact with in my everyda life making her story evne more intresting to me.

I find the way the book is written very interesting. Parts of it are very poetic but then there is always a slightly humorus spin to it. A unique way of writting indeed. I still have a ways to go in the novel, but i wonder if her writing style will seem to have more meaning to perhaps emphasise the purpose of the novel.

Holden

Holden clearly feels alot of pain in his life. He uses many defense mechanisms to protect himself. He makes it as if he hates everyone. He does this distance himself from people. He makes this clear at the end of the novel when he explains that he hates talking about the people in his life because it makes him miss them and it makes him sad. His red hunting hat symbolizes him isolating himself. Holden wants to be different from others and the hat clearly sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Holden clearly misses his childhood and his time spent with Allie. This is symbolized in Allie's old baseball mitt which holden finds dear to him. It is also symbolized with his dream to be the catcher in the rye. Holden says he wants to "catch" the children running in the field. I feel this is Holden saying he wants to keep them from growing up.

Catcher and the Rye

Holden fails out of all his schools. He thinks of everyone as phony. Its intresting how he almost seems to blame others for his failur. At the begging of thw novel he clearly seems almost angry at the world, constantly describing thing using words like damn and hell. He seems to try to distance himself from others. His cynical comentary on the world and people around him makes this evident. I found Holden very easy to relate to. His thoughts seem mondane to a kid, not wanting to care very much on the school, but its impressive that he actually feels alright going by morals and leaving to the waste side.

Where in the world is Esther Greenwood?

Where in the world is Esther Greenwood? When i pose this question I mean not physically but mentally. Here thoughts are all over the place throughout the book. Its interesting how she reacts to the way people perceive her when they know that she tried to kill herself. She finds it peculiar and is almost angry taht people think shes crazy that she tried to commit suicide. This would only come from an author who later kills herself (which makes sense that she doesnt think that thought of suicide is pedestrian). This also brings me much interest in how the author makes it sound so passionate and profound of Esther to share her feelings in poem, while the authoer, herself, is too depicting her feelings in her writing. I was very intrested to see if Esthers feelings were normal of people who try to kill themselves and wonder if the author had these same feelings allowing her to write about them so vividly.

Esther and The City

Esther seems to feel like she is not in control of her life. She seems very successful as she has went from having nothing to living in new york city working in the fashion business and partying with celebrities. Still, she feels the city moves her rather than her moving in the city. 

Right away it is clear that she has some sort of deep emotional problem. She makes many references death, or other dark things. She uses light alot, not to describe herself, but others who she envies Doreen. When she is watching Doreen in the apartment with Lenny, whom has a bright WHITE smile, she sees Doreen as having light hair and a white dress almost making her appear silver. She follows this with how it is so uncomfortable and basically explains that she is jealous of Doreen and Lenny. She also describes her mirror as much too silvery. This is odd because previously she described things to be silver that she wanted. how is it too silvery? Is this actually symbolizing and foreshadowing an inner conflict of self hatred?

Frank:Wes::Ross:Monica

I also find the rivalry between Frank and Wes reminds me of Ross and Monica

Ross was the Favorite and Monica gets very jealous and tries to make Ross look bad. Like in one episode, Monica invites her parents over to her apartment. She wants her and Chandler to look good so she tells her parents about Ross doing drugs in collage, which they original thought was Chandler did, not Ross. Just as it seems that Wes was partially convicting his brother out of his jealousy toward his brother from the past. In Another episode Ross tells his parents he divorced his wife who is a lesbian and now pregnant with his baby rather than saying anything to ross she turns to Monica and says "You knew about this!?" This is like How rather than the grandfather being mad at Frank for molesting and possibly murdering, he is mad at Wes for arresting Frank.

I find it very intriguing that Watson constantly juxtaposes David's yearn for maturity with his lack of maturity throughout the novel. David constantly says he wants to know what is goign on when his parents are arguing in the kitchen over Uncle Frank. He knows he should be mature and stay upstairs but he instead goes downstairs. He doesn't go down to console his parents, nor to find out what is going on, but instead to get a piece of chocolate cake. Another instance of this is when after David finishes telling the reader how he hoped his dad would tell him what was going he gets in to bed and cries. One would find tears in a situation like this to be a usual reaction, but he was not crying for his uncle, the loss of his housekeeper, or the pain and stress his dad was enduring, but for the fact that now he would probably never get to see Nutty, the horse, ever again. 

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The fact that Wesley even accused his brother of rape and murder made me wonder what I would do in a similar situation. I don't think i could ever convict a family member no matter the circumstances. I wondered if their had been any instances of this in the past. I found that in 1908, in Brooklyn, a man arrests both his brothers for robbery. 

Montana 1948 post 1

Being from Berg County NJ, i assumed a story taking place in Montana in 1948 would be bland filled with simpletons who lead boring lives. When david described his father as "a man who tried to turn tow ways at once- toward my grandfather who wanted his son to continue the hayden rule of Mercer County and toward my mother, who wanted her husband to be merely himself not a Hayden" (21) I realized that their was way more to these characters and this plot. 

Wes Hayden's father was the sheriff of Bentrock for quite some time. He was a power-hungry man. When Wes became sheriff he did not show these same qualities as his father. Wes never showed off his badge, always keeping it in his pocket. He also did not carry around a fancy gun. This is where the book first portrays a theme that is obvious throughout the novel (well at least up to where I've read). This theme is of course Family Pride. Also, the fact that he is a lawyer and this is what he does defeats ones expectations of a typical Western lawyer. 

The author does a great job colorfully depicting the characters as well as the land. Growing up in North Dakota, Watson really good knowledge of the North Dakota - Montana area. That makes it interesting that he chose Bentrock to stand right on the boundry of North Dakota and Montana