#8220;you, the reader are Esperanza” (xix). Many people are discontented with what they have or where they live, or so they believe. They, in fact, are unhappy with who they are inside, unhappy with the things they identify with. A home is not just a simple building with walls and a roof; it symbolizes all that a person wants, believes, and perceives. Esperanza leaves her home on Mango Street because she believes the grass is greener on the other side; however, she is not content with her surroundings, and therefore not content with herself.All people have someplace that they call their home, whether it be loving or hateful, pretty or ugly, big or small. It is in fact, their place of residency. But what does that house really mean to those people, or to Esperanza for that matter. As she grows, Esperanza realizes that their dwelling was, frankly, a dump. Mango Street is in a poor neighborhood where crime runs rampid, and she knows she wants more for her life. Her mind is flooded with dreams of a big mansion with the stereotypical white picket fence. She says, “I had to have a house. A real house. But this isn’t it. The house on Mango Street isn’t it” (6). “I want a house on a hill like the ones with the gardens where Papa works” (107). She eventually leaves the town aspiring to become a writer. She tells us that “they will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out” (134). Once she leaves for another place, however, she will have established a new home, a new identity. When returning to Mango Street, the dilapidated house will no longer be home, but a former residency, a place where she lived while growing up. She will have moved on with her life, and in a sense, could never go back “home” to Mango Street. Home is where she had gone, where she had moved her heart.As Esperanza searches for her true i...
