Blog Post #5: Photo Thematic Motif

I selected this particular photo because it reflects the thematic motif of entrapment that I selected and followed throughout the book. Esperanza’s life is quite similar to a jail cell because of her poverty and her family.

    Esperanza was not born into a family that is very well off. There are many instances throughout the book that show the family is deep in poverty such as the house they live in, which has “wooden bars papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out (Cisneros 5)”. Esperanza hates this house. She is embarrassed whenever she has to point it out to people and constantly dreams of the day when she can own a house that belongs soley to her. The house she dreams of is much nicer than the one they currently live in and is the best house her young mind can imagine. Despite the firey passion she hates the house with, Esperanza is too young to change where she lives, which is why she is entrapped by her poverty.

When I selected this photo it reminded me of a project I did earleir in the year over the entrappment of Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities. I can remember picking a similar picture to represent when Darnay was falsely imprisonned, and that made me stop to consider the similarities between the two. While it seems the two are completely unrelated, there are a few similarities. One such similarity is the fact that neither of the two could do anything about their entrappment at the time the stories were told. Esperanza was much too young to influence where she lives, and Darnay had no choice but to go to prison. Another similarity is that both characters were entrapped because of the family they were born into. Esperanza is born into her poverty and Darnay is arrested because of his family relationship with a noble. This photo represents a lack of freedom, which is present in The House on Mango Street and other books we have read throughout the year.