chap 8-9

1) The dialogue in the story isn’t bad. It seems as though the author had thought about the dialogue quite a bit. My suggestion for it would be to make the beginning a bit more interesting. Perhaps I say this because I haven’t read previous chapters but the girl characters’ relationships seem really boring or typical. I feel as though he could have also described the makeup scene more because smearing make up on may not be a bad thing or a good thing. I was looking for, does she look cute, ugly, weird? The beginning lacks detail that could change the mood coming into that chapter. In the end I think the dialogue was good but could be a bit more interesting
2) Adrian’s folklore is very cool. I thought it was pretty interesting but someone who doesn’t like mythical stuff wouldn’t necessarily look forward to reading such a long chapter about it .
3) Dorothy’s reactions are realistic but they aren’t descriptive enough. Show it not tell it is what we use at school and that aspect in this book could be the thing that makes it from an okay book to a great book. I want to know more about how she feels. The folklore and the description of Adrian needs to be applied to Dorothy as well. It would help spice up the writing and make the main character more interesting. She seems bland.
4) The cultural part of the story seemed a bit long but not quite forced. Just a bit unexpected as most cool guy people in the story wouldn’t usually talk about that kind of thing and may have been even a little more flirtatious.
5) Dorothy’s thoughts of how she feels about Adrian don’t clearly come across here. I think she is a bit boring, as most of the things that happen to her only her observation of it is given but not her thoughts or feelings about it. For example if a man saw a dime and observed it and came to the conclusion that it is shiney. (Well id want to know how does he feel about it, how does that affect his action? Does he pick it up?) so when Adrian does all of this stuff, I want to know how that makes her feel.
6) Adrian is okay, he isn’t very flirtatious which to me makes him just okay.

where esperanza will go from here

Esperanza has been saved from a dark future on Mango Street and because she was different from the other girls in some ways she was the one who made it though the book without many tragedies and painful scars, unlike sally, or Minerva. She was considered lucky. It was prophecy that she would be the one to escape the bad life that everyone else suffered particularly the woman suffer. The pregnancy, the abuse and unsuccessfulness that plagued Mango Street skipped over her. Yet she felt bad because of what happened to sally and the others as we could tell. This was evident when she had wished to escape then afterward thought “…I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish”(pg. 105). This particularly shows how the misfortune of women in Mango Street is a cycle that most women there go through, its as if they are entitled to it.

However her future unlike the others is bright. From reading in her prospective it is easy to tell she is very intelligent and observant. She may move on to have a great job. Since her view on men is probably pretty bad she may not get married or have children but she would defiantly support her family if they needed it. She may even end up influencing the young woman on ways to avoid getting beaten and harmed around Mango Street as she has managed to stay out of trouble herself. She could even become a role model for them. She is smart and she knows right from wrong for the most part. Her parents encouraged her as well to grow up and not quit school or anything but to keep enduring life so that she wouldn’t have to live the home life like the rest of them “Esperanza you go to school. Study hard,” (pg 91). So she could be the type of person who helps others in that situation. She is just the type to do it as well because she didn’t necessarily have all the money in the world all she had was her house on Mango Street her family and a few dear belongings. Over all her life would’ve been the hardest out of all of the women though because she will be the one to go out in the real world, past the hurt, past the ignored cries, and far, far past Mango Street.

this is how i am

I am a half lazy half “gosh I can do it myself lemme alone,” type of person. I am probably the only extremely talkative person who likes to be alone and quiet sometimes. I like to splat paint on a piece of thick paper and call it a masterpiece. I seem to be a spacey person to other people. Sometimes I go home and play my instrument for hours until my mouth is numb and sometimes I avoid looking at it. I have a very funny and weird family. I have 3brothers and 3 sisters and I am “aunty” to 13 members of my family. Both of my parents are tall. My dad likes to crack toilet jokes to my friends when they call me and he picks up before I do. I am very clumsy and I trip and fall a lot but I never manage to break anything. I have a lot of random impulses to say something sarcastic, and I smile too much. I used to eat paper, mechanical pencil graphite lead, and chew on my toys. When I was 3 I spilled scolding hot coffee on my left foot and got 2nd and 3rd degree burns.

I like classical music by Bach, Holst, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Schubert, Chopin, Debussy, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, and Vivaldi, just to name a few. I’m moving soon! I’ve spent most of my childhood in a car going here going there, not very pleasant. My favorite TV show is house and my favorite movies are Donnie Darko, the hangover, and wanted. Lastly, I have a very odd obsession with Japanese stuff and people, Mulan (I know she’s not Japanese but I still like her), and books with one word titles(i.e. crack burned, crooked, flipped, shug, flushed, twisted, speak. I do things sometimes and forget people are watching. Sometimes I make weird faces at ppl when they call me and don’t say anything. Im forgetful and without my student planner id have an F in all my classes. and I am so disorganized that the school accidentally made me a most organized award and my writing teacher hung it up on her wall to make her laugh.

names

Names
My full name is Kathryn Patricia Douglas. Kathryn meaning purity is the name of my grandma. She was Kathryn Galaway, then Kathryn Elder. In a way I am a bit like Esparanza having the same name as my grandma. Unfortunately she died when I was young and couldn’t remember. She has epilepsy. I was almost Maddie my other grandmas name but she died from cancer when my dad was 9 so he didn’t want to give me such a depressing name. Also my mom’s name means the same thing as mine. Purity. My middle name Patricia is my aunt’s first name and my mom’s youngest sister.

My last name is Douglas; it’s from my dad’s side of course. It’s a Scottish last name and somehow there are these two Douglass in Scottish history. The black Douglas (no pun intended) and the red Douglas. I guess this infers that I have some Scottish in me from somewhere.

My most common nickname is Kathy. I have been called this since the 5th grade but I regretted it. In the 5th grade I made a lot of new friends and all of them knew me as Kathy. I tried to get rid of it coming to California but I gave in. I was like ugh what the hell...fine.
My other nick names are Kat, Kath, Athy, kitty, kitkat, patty, or Marce (which shouldn’t be part of my name at all). Kat is usually what my “buddies” who thing that I don’t seem like a Kathy call me, I prefer to be called Kat but Kathy sticks like glue. Kath is what a person who is really close to me will call me, if there was such a thing as intimacy in my life, the intimate person would most likely call me Kath. It’s like a cutesy name for me. Athy is a teasing nickname and only guys who really want to get on my nerves call me athy. Kitty and kitkat are family names. My cousins have been calling me kitty since before I can remember and its kind of annoying since I have grown up and they still call me kitty. Patty is a nickname for Patricia which is what my sister calls me. In return I call her patrivita because that’s her middle name. She hates it. Lastly a lot more people on my mom’s side of the family call me Marce because my sister and I sound/look similar and that is my sister’s name. Plus most of them are too old to remember my name is Kathryn.

cisnero's view on sexism in mango street

The author of house on Mango Street clearly has some sexism topics in the book. the author seems to believe that girls are treated more harshly than men. The girls in her book suffer from being confined to stereotypes, men, and their homes. This is a sign that she believes that they suffer from sexism and confinement. The way this book is written sexism is a main conflict as many of the women face it and have to endure it. Sadly the world is not the kindest to people who go against the standards in their environment. In the reading “sally” it is a about a girl who’s father believes she is too attractive and confines “her father says to be this beautiful is trouble,” pg 81. In opposition we could infer that if he had a son, most fathers allow their boys to be more creative. But sally had a strict father who also hit her. Soon her father starts to beat her as if he forgot that she is a girl and his daughter as well. This is sad for sally because most girls who are raised with a father in a bad community look up to them but this little girl fears him.

Also in this book I happen to notice that there really aren’t many happy women. They all have too many kids, are beaten, or aren’t too educated. “Next week she comes over black and blue and she ask what can I do” (pg85 Minerva who writes poems). This quote is about a woman beaten by her no good husband. in the book Esparanza fears and doesn’t was the life in bondage that other women around mango street have. Therefore she starts to dream of being the woman who runs her own life. Even after that her mom advises her to work hard and be someone. I think these are all signs of the author hinting at how one of the morals in this story is to not get caught up in the present of boy girl expectations, but go your own way.

Er(n)ythin

My n looked like an r, so they laughed at me. Truth is I was never the best speller, nor the most self controlled. Then my best friend Lex, wasn’t my best friend anymore either. We got into an argument cuz she thought I’d be a good idea to make me jealous of her, but it didn’t turn out too well. They made fun of me, really made me feel like nothing.
I ran away, cried, tripped and then the anger in my small stomach slid up my throat and came out as loud screaming and swearing. Lex, her cousin, and friend laughed. They laughed until they cried, and I stood there in my long frilly socks and stupid sundress. I handed her cousin a note and then I said “don’t ever come back to my house”. But she had something to say to me and stuck her foot in the door before I could slam it. “We don’t want to come over your house anyway. You’re a loser.”
At school the next morning, I got on the bus to hell. Lex and her cousin were there looking at the note I gave. When they say me the two and their group (that I was no longer a part of), moved to around where I sat, and simultaneously chanted. “YOU DON’T MEAN E-R-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G, ERNYTHAAAANG” I didn’t know what they were talking about at all until they through the note I had sloppily written at my face. I read it, and I felt stupid. Stupider than stupid. It said “you don’t mean er(n)ything” but then n wasn’t completed so it looked like an R.

Blappity-Blap-Blah..SMACK.

I stood at the bus stop with all of the other girls and boys, watching my “best friend” talk to them. they blapped on about some girl and her chest, they said she stuffed it.I Never talked to them myself, because they’d never talk to me,i was a "loser". I looked back and forth at their big mouths hanging open, and happen to notice a hair that poked out at the top of her head. I figured it must be really embarrassing to talk about someone else's appearance when hers was crooked too, I so I picked it up and moved it. As soon as I touched it Lex slapped me right in the face. I felt like I had been hit by a bus. But worse than the slap I feared for the blappity-blaps that float around in the school air, more fluidly than oxygen itself.
We got on the bus and I heard them saying things about me. I cried, and my cheeks stung from the cold, one more than the other because of the slap. Soon after we got to school word spread. I got lots of “Dude, why did you pull her hair?!?!” , but I never did. I never would pull anyones hair,especially not hers. When I walked from P.E. to math class, people glared, others giggles and whispered, and the rest of the lot spread the rumors. The rumor that I, kathryn douglas, pulled her best friends hair out and got punched in the face.
Hell, Im sure they believed it. My face was hot, anger hot. And finally at lunch,she walked up to me and asked “so are you going to apologize”. I thought long and hard about it. My only friend, since the 2nd grade. “im sorry” I said. With my head lowered and my dignity gone I could have cried until my eyes fell out, but this was the beginning of a frozen heart. My face was straight and my heart was slowly but surely icing over. Turning out anyone who dared to treat me like I was in their way. Id rather leave, and die..

windows

Being outside is often taken for granted, we sit inside and get on our computers for a long time or read a book, even. In the house on Mango Street, the women in the readings are all confound by windows, boundaries. Window is somewhat of a tease, only a lick of the taste. The view from a window has no good feelings, even if the view is breath taking its only part of it.
Looking out the window being depressed is sad because sitting inside and never allow to be outside just because you’re beautiful is torture. it’s like being given a cake and being told you can’t eat it, sadly each one of these women were taken away from the thing that they valued most. And while not all things have the same meaning a window is just a sad substitute for outside.
One woman is taken away from her opportunity to enjoy her life. To do what she desired was a very important thing to her as. But then up came a man and took her away from it, and of course she was powerless to do anything to fight it. Another lady is enclosed in social windows by not speaking English, she doesn’t wasn’t to give up her origins, she doesn’t want to be a traitor. So she refuses to say anything in English.
These are just examples of women who are alone, depressed and feel as though they have no outlet. I can relate, I love to take pictures of nature but I’ve always ridden in a car so there was no way to take a great picture. I used to have to watch the kids play outside though my window while my childhood drifted away, I didn’t have very many friends and sadly no one really wanted to be my friend. So I sat there looking out the window, unsure whether I should go out into the bare coolness of a shallow friendship that has no real important. Or watch what it looks like to grow up being friends with only one person. Today I still look outside the car window, but I have my own camera to capture what I wish I could just step out of the car to see.
These women never had the chances I did, which is sad and tragic. And even though they are but mere fictional characters they are based on real ones who had real experiences like that.