摘 要

被视为美国作家和女性主义者的桑德拉·希斯内罗丝 (Sandra Cisneros) 在文化交融和经济不平等的背景下长大, 她最著名的作品是第一部小说《芒果街上的小屋》。希斯内罗丝的早期生活经历对她的写作生涯的影响很大。 她有六位兄弟，作为家里唯一的女儿，她常常感到孤立，她的家人在墨西哥和美国之间的不断迁徙使她感到“永远跨越两个国家，但不属于两个国家的文化”。《芒果街上的小屋》由44个相对独立的短篇文章组成，所有的故事都发生在芝加哥的芒果街。叙述者埃斯佩浪莎生活在拉丁美洲的贫困社区芒果街，天生的同情和美感，使得她用清晰的眼睛，用关于成长的美丽和温柔的语言，用关于生命的沧桑和美丽，关于年轻的希望和梦想来看这个世界。埃斯佩浪莎梦想有一个属于自己的房子，梦想自己从事写作，获得自由，帮助别人，摆脱贫困，飞出芒果街。

关键词：女性主义 成长 不平等 房子

1. Introduction

1.1 Background Information

In the 1960s, racial discrimination still exists in the United States. Latin American debt crisis in the 1980s, inflation, the Mexican peso crisis in the 1990s and so on have become the "launched" factors of Latin American immigrants. The economic recovery of the United States in the 1980s, the economic growth of the 1990s to 2000 has become the "inhalation" of Latin American immigrants. Although the United States was originally a country of immigration, known as the "melting pot" of the title, but there has been first immigrant groups who are "native residents protectionist" to exclude immigrants later. The majority immigrants are from Mexico. Hispanic new immigrants are low in education, mostly speaking in Spanish, and in the United States they are engaged in low-income physical labor. They live in the place where the American whites are reluctant to live in the city center. Latin American new immigrants are difficult to integrate into the mainstream American society, and are more difficult to enter the upper echelons of American society.

1.2 The Writing Process of Sandra Cisneros

After being funded into the Iowa University writing class, Cisneros always feels uncomfortable in her writing class. There is a discussion of “house” and “home” in one class. When everyone publishes his or her own views, she looks around and finds that she is the only one who does not open the mouth. “She knows that they have their own house and home, but she doesn’t. She is humiliated, and becomes very angry, and this anger turns into a kind of energy to stimulate her fighting spirit.” (Yao, 2013: 25). In one interview, Sandra Cisneros said, in fact, this energy is enough to light a city, but most of the time, we do not know how to light it, and only to use it to deal with ourselves and the people around. In fact, this anger ultimately forced her to write the kind that people never written, and only she can. She does not want to sue anything, which is the way everyone will think of. But the complaint cannot solve any problems. Memory has made heart become filled with too much pain, if she cannot do some kind of transformation, the anger will ruin her (Cisneros, 1987: 69). So, she naturally adopts the poetic expression. So, The House on Mango Street came into being. In 1985, Sandra Cisneros won the American Book Award. This book has caused uproar in the American literary world, promoting the development of American postmodernist literature.

Through her own observation, Esperanza has to see her own family life, to see the life around the neighbors and to see all the personnel on the mango street, at last, she comes to the conclusions --- only do not live like her mother, not like other girls, can she take the right path to write and to do self-salvation. Esperanza has been able to complete this series of changes, and ultimately embarks on a different path because of the family's oppression, that are the family, others’ family and the girls’ brutal family lives through the marriage. These realities lay the foundation for the little girl making the right decision.

1.3 Thesis Arrangement

This thesis will be divided into three parts to illustrate the development of feminism in this novel. The first part is the author’s irritation caused by reality, including the racial discrimination and the masculine bullying; the second part is self-consciousness, Esperanza thinks a lot about lives; the third part is self-growth, she becomes more mature than before and try to change.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Previous study on the House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street is made up of short essays, which are not totally short paragraphs or sentences and not totally long stories. Cisneros uses poems, short stories, autobiography, and fiction to indirectly show her feelings. Some contents of this book are inspired by Cisneros’ real life. Esperanza illustrates these short essays with first-person present tense, paying attention to her daily activities. However, sometimes she illustrates other stories that are observed by herself. The author says that she wants The House on Mango Street was to be accessible to everyone. At first, “she wrote the book just wants to convey her feelings, not realizing that it would speak a voice for Latin immigrants and is regarded as the works of great Latino literature at last.” (Sun, 2011: 51) She wants this novel to include more rhymes so that it would be easier to be understood by poetry lovers, and use simple words and language so that those outsiders could read and enjoy. She also wants children and adults to be interested in this book. And the author tries best to keep the novel short so that even the busiest parents and adults who have tiredly worked long hours could still have time to read it (Gaspar de Alba, 1999: 16).

 Although Cisneros uses English to write, but in fact that is a different kind of English, a kind of abundant language, which dyed on the Mexican, Spanish color. Moreover, her parents have some impact on her. Because at home, her father used to speak Spanish, but her mother can only speak English. In this way, she was naturally affected by the two languages. Every culture has its own perspective of the world. She wishes that she has a little Spanish color in her English expression. It is not hard for her to do this, and she only needs to spend some time on thinking about words and structures.

There is one important research topic that is the awakening of women, which including three aspects.

1. Awakening of social responsibility

Though uses simple words, The House on Mango Street conveys a profound idea, which is the little girl, Esperanza’s social responsibility. In her growing process, her self-consciousness has gradually turned into the responsibility for her neighbors, and even the responsibility for the entire Latin American immigrants. At first she just wants to get rid of Mango Street. But through gradually contacting with her neighbors, she feels the love and responsibility for them. Just as the author tells us at the end of the book, “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.” (Cisneros, 1994: 100) As a writer, the author has done it. She lets the whole world pay attention to the living conditions of Latin American immigrants, especially to a group of immigrants on Mango Street.

1. Awakening of female consciousness

“At first Esperanza thought that boys and girls live in separate worlds, and boys have different powers. It’s enough to change women’s destiny if they just wear high heels and become beautiful. However she gradually changes her idea. She realized that even a beautiful woman is nothing but a man's booty.” (Hu, 2013: 118). She no longer hopes that gender or beauty will bring any changes of fate. So she devotes herself into writing.

1. Awakening of writing consciousness --- the most important awakening

Esperanza realizes that writing would give her the power to escape Mango Street. In the whole work, the writer's observation has become mature. At first, she is a participant in the story, but gradually she could only write the people around her to show her feelings, and she has become different from them. At the end of the book, Esperanza knows that she has obtained different power through writing. Although she has not found her own home, but she already has its own independent spiritual world.

It is said that in the sad situation where the most powerful flower will be born out, then The House on Mango Street is such a flower.

2.2 Previous studies on Sandra Cisneros