This picture that I’ve chosen does not only symbolize poverty, but it shows how even people in poverty love each other for who they are instead of the money in their pockets. This picture expresses the love between a husband and wife. To me this pictures shows the opposite of how people feel today; in the country there are so many men and women now a days that are living in a dysfunctional marriage. This picture is an amazing example of how Americans should be today, isn’t this why men and women take wows saying they would love each other forever. Americans need to now step it up and be like this couple; a couple that will love each other forever. This picture also makes me think of my grandfather and grandmother, they loved each other so much all the way until death. My grandparents were so inspiring to me because of their love for each other through all. This picture overall makes me think of all of the couples today that are facing divorce because they don’t love each other like these two people in this picture. I believe if all of the marriages in the U.S. were to be like this than we would have less murder and less crime in the country. This picture inspires me so much to be like this when i’m older and married I want to love my wife just as the man in this photo.

My life was always hard. I used to begin the day with a sip of alcohol and a mouth full of dip. It all started when I was back in the frat , I was usually a good kid until I began to go to parties with my friends. I had always wanted to be a doctor, but after long study nights in the dorms I just started slacking off and I began to make c’s and d’s. This was the start of my demise when it came to studying and school work. Now I am living off paycheck to paycheck making less than ten dollars and hour, this was very unfortunate for me because I was so smart at the time. Now at the age of twenty-six I was going to start applying into different colleges in order to gain my degree in biology. I knew this was a tough road for me to travel down because I knew that I would have to study a lot harder in order to pass my classes. This was a challenge for me due to the fact that I was a big slacker in college due to all of the drugs and such. It has been two years now in school and I was doing very good for a past addict. Now in two years i plan on graduating college with a bachelors in biology; I also plan on going to medical school so I can make a better life for myself.

The five star quote that I have chosen is “they always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn’t have to move each year […] Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without fence. This was the house papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house mama dreamed up in the stories she told us before we went to bed (Cisneros 4).” This reminds me so much of my family today, we do this by dreaming every time my dad buys a lottery ticket. We cross our fingers and hope for the best even though there is like a million to one chance that we would even win. I believe if a person has the ability of dreaming for something that is better than what they have, then they will have the determination to go out and work hard for something that they have always wanted. It strikes me bad when I see people now a days throw their life away because they don’t want to work in order to get the things they’ve always wanted. Overall I believe when people dream of something nice or a random thing they want bad, then I think they will do what ever it takes in order to get what they want. In order to do this though they must have good work ethic and good morals.

Hey Esperansa my name is john and I was wondering if you would answer a few questions for me. I am trying to start my writing career and I would love to put some of your thought’s into my new book which will be called “A Fresh New Start.” This will be about a man that wins a lot of money, then eventually loses it all and he will have to live like the bums he always discriminated against. Please feel free to write back as soon as you can. My first question on the agenda is, do you believe you will ever get out of poverty and buy a new house of your dreams? The reason I ask this is because I feel that you are a very responsible and smart person, yet I don’t see you ever in your life time leaving Mango street or the ghetto. For this reason I would love to here back from you so I can begin writing my novella. My second question is one that I have always wanted to ask you. Do you believe in yourself enough to go to college to gain a proper education in order, to get a job to support yourself and a family. The reason I asked this question was because many people that grow up poor really don’t believe in themselves enough to where they can go to college to get a higher education. These are all of my questions and I would be very happy to here back from you. If I do in fact write a novella I will dedicate the book to your name.

In “The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros, Esperansa travels through a new stage of responsibilities that she would later regret. This process is shown through her outstanding use of symbolism. Esperansa begins to learn more about her body as she begins to mature into a young lady with hips. For example,”one day you wake up and they are there. Ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition (Cisneros 49).” This portrays how important hips are for women, once they appear they are ready to take control of the women’s body in order to get a man that can support her and such. The kids also begin to talk about the perks of the big hips. In addition,”what I’m saying is who here is ready? You gotta be able to know what to do with hips when you get them, I say making it up as I go. You gotta know how to walk with hips, practice you know—like if half of you wanted to go one way and the other half the other (50).” This explains how women these days need to learn how to use there hips in order to get what they want. Also it shows how women need to be practicing in order to get better at what ever they do with their hips. Overall Cisneros uses symbolism in order to express how important hips are for a women not only to show growth, but also in order to get a man.

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.

Everybody in John’s family loves the beach. It is only once a year that they visit the beach, but they try to make the most of it. The morning is the time they go most often (the time when the sun is at its weakest), and also the time when the sharks are not out. Beep-beep, this was the sound of Johns alarm clock, that was set to wake him up at eight o’clock in the morning. As he woke up he could hear this loud high pitched scream like nails on a chalk board coming from the living room, it was his mother who was calling him to see the beautiful sea that was nice and calm. “Get ready son, we will depart from the condo in ten minutes,” he agreed and ten minutes later they left for the beach.
It was eight thirty; John’s family was walking through the white sandy beaches to the ocean front, in order to build a sand castle. This was their usual schedule, and then they would walk into the beautiful blue ocean, so they could swim and jump the waves. There were four of them in the family; two brothers named john and jack, also a mother and father named Donny and Rachel. As they began to build their sand castle John and Jack began to fight as usual and this caused a loud argument which included screaming and conflict. As the conflict was later settled the boys continued to build their sand castles on two different plots of land, this gave the two boys the right to build their own ideas and such. The boys began to wrap up their sand castles and clearly john had the best castle because he was the most artistic out of the two. The family then continued on to their next activity in the day, “how about we play some beach volley ball,” Donny asked and the boy’s faces lit up with jumping joy as this was their favorite game to play. John then asked “what will the teams be dad?” his dad then answered with “perhaps they could be the same as last time,” and John answered with a simple okay. As the game got started, both teams were playing to win, but it was in the interest of every person to have as much fun as they could. This is something that they had always agreed, on to have the most fun because it had occurred to them that usually whoever has the most fun will usually win.
As the game came to a close tie, in the end the two teams began to play harder and they began to lose the ability to have fun. “Twelve to twelve” Donny said and the two teams played with their all; mostly because they knew the losers would most likely have no bragging rights after the game. When Donny served next, it was a bad one and it went out of play, Donny and John had lost the game. This was a devastating loss for John because he knew that he was better than Jack. John knew that for the rest of the night he would here jack all night bragging about his victory. In the end though, the two teams came back together to being a family and they remembered how they were supposed to have fun, but they had lost their ability to enjoy the game through their excessive fighting. However this fighting brought them closer together as a family and allowed them to see past fighting.

His name is Jake. He is about five foot ten, tan, chubby, and a long haired Californian. We met in sixth grade, in which we were both percussionist. I remember back then, we would make fun of him for various things including, the jeans he wore and the stupid things he would do to gain attention. Some how I still can’t fathom how we ever became friends do to the mean things I called him. Although I made fun of him a lot, we became best friends, all through school we have been friends. All the way from sixth to tenth. However through the years we have had a number of arguments, pretty much everyday we argue,now mostly about small things. This is why I truly don’t understand why we are friends, due to all of the arguing. People ask all the time whether we are friends or not, I just say yes and they look at me in disbelieve. Although we argue a lot we are also very close friends. We talk about everything with each other and we usually do a lot of things together. One other reason why I don’t believe we could be friends is the fact that he is a very evil person, even if you were to ask him he would flat out tell you that he is a menace to society. When we walked into pet co once he stated “hey walker don’t you just want to kill everything in the store.”I thought of him as being a sociopath, knowing he was joking though, I began to laugh. Although we argue a lot, are friendship is really strong and it would take a lot more than arguing to break it.

The land is beautiful, so beautiful. I consider it my prized possession, with its smooth flats and bright green grass. It is a safe haven for the family; it has been passed down generation to generation and it has kept its beauty along the way. The previous owner of the land was my grandfather, a kind generous man that always seemed to bring the joy out of people. He died last summer though and it was time for my family to take control of the land and keep it up. This is why I consider it my prized possession, because of the long history that is behind the land. The land is only about 10 square acres, but it is big enough for the cabin and gun range that lie on it. Probably the most interesting thing though about the land is that, each generation of land owners in the family have put their initials on the wooden frame of the barn that was built. The hardest thing for my family to do now, is keep up the hard work that was done on my families beautiful masterpiece before us. The most important thing about the land is the fact that it brings joy to my family. Almost every Sunday we go out there and we have a cook out. This place isn’t only a good place because of its looks, it is also a good place for my family to go out and talk to each other and spend quality time together.

It was about ten years ago in that very house that I had lost my first tooth. It was a time of great peril as I knew that it would hurt really bad, but one thing I knew was that my family would sit through it with me. As we sat down at the kitchen table, my father asked if I was ready for my tooth to be pulled. Of course I said no, but he insisted on pulling the tooth out right away. He continued to tell me that he was going to pull it out on the count of three. “one, two, and three” and he let out a great pull on my tooth.”Owww” I screamed, but he had ended up pulling it out smoothly and professionally. Thank you dad, I said and we began to to clean up the large mess that was present at the end of the of the tooth pulling. At the time I was still debating whether I would loose more teeth than that and my brother stated “don’t worry walker, because there will be plenty more teeth for you to loose in the rest of your life time.” Was this true or was it just a lie, my father began to tell me that I would have at least twenty-four more teeth that would come out before I become an adult. At that point I began to realize that I would have to start growing up. This was not something I particularly wanted to do, but it was something that would have to be done for myself to grow and mature into an adult