In “A Life on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, a theme of poverty is conveyed in three sections of this book through the family’s life styles and the conditions in which they live in. This theme is also expressed through the different family’s that interact with Esperanza’s family.
In the beginning of the book, Cisneros uses the family’s house to express to the reader how poor their family is. For example, Cisneros applies the quote “Where do you live? She asked. There I said pointing up to the third floor. You live there? (Cisneros 5).” Through this Cisneros indicates that the family was suffering from bad poverty; even the nuns who are supposed to be nice point out that Esperanza’s family is poor. What the nun didn’t realize was that she was actually making fun of Esperanza for her family’s inability to buy a nice house. Furthermore, Cisneros travels further into the depth of the family’s poverty by stating “Out back is a small garage for the car we don’t own yet and a small yard that looks smaller than then the two buildings on either side (4).” This emphasizes how the family would dream of a house that they would probably never have because they never have the money to save due to them living check to check every week. From these quotes it is clear to the reader that this family was very poor and that they were unable to buy anything but the cheapest of things.
Towards the middle of the book, Cisneros moves on to advance the family’s problem with the little money that they make. For example, she states [Esperanza got] to go to school with [her] mothers letter and a rice sandwich … [they] don’t have lunch meat (44).” This shows how absolutely poor this family was, that they couldn’t even afford good lunch meat for their kids to eat. Overall it shows that the family is too poor to buy good food for their family. In addition, “Those who don’t know any better come into [Esperanzas] neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives (28).”This also expresses how poor the family was, so that people would be afraid to go into to their neighborhood due to the stereotype that some poor people are actually awful human beings. This allows the reader to understand more on how poor the family is.
By the end of the book, Cisneros describes Esperanza as a person that wants to care for others, so they don’t end up like her in the end. For example, “people that live on hills sleep so close to the stars they forget those of us who live too much on earth (86).” This expresses how hard it was for her to grow up living like a bum, but living as she did gave her a chance to gain knowledge that eventually helped her in the long run to succeed. In addition, Esperanzas mom states “shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down. You want to know why I quit school. Because I didn’t have nice clothes. No clothes, but I had brains (91).” This shows that Esperanzas mother is not rich, but has so much love for Esperanza that she told Esperanza her story in order to keep her in school and to make sure Esperanza can take care of herself in the long run. In the end, through Esperanzas struggles, this shows that Esperanza will probably not be rich, but will have the wisdom to do great thing I her life.
Overall, Cisneros has successfully achieved her theme of poverty through the poor lifestyle of Esperanza and her family and their poor living conditions.