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Abigail Fricke

Mrs.Stanford

ENG124

22 August 2018

Summer reading presentation on ​Metamorphosis a​ nd ​The House on Mango Street

I. Thesis:

A. Although written very differently, about two very different topics, the

books, ​Metamorphosis ​by Franz Kafka and ​The House on Mango Street ​by

Sandra Cisneros, share a common theme. They both talk about how

although certain things may get in your way, some sort of change is

possible for everyone and within that change, you are always able to find

your true identity.

II. Analysis:

A. In ​The House on Mango Street, a​ lthough there isn’t a set storyline or

something to follow, change can be seen through the character Esperanza

Cordero. At the beginning of the story, Esperanza is shown as a young

Latino girl, who is growing up in Chicago, specifically on Mango Street.

She aspires to be a writer but within her community, that wasn’t

something that a lot of people did. So, throughout the book, she struggles

to find out who she is as a person and who she wants to be as a writer. Her

parents, although normally very supportive, seem to disapprove

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Esperanza’s wishes to be a writer and would rather her stay at home and

help out with their family. For example, at the beginning of the book (page

xiii), the text says, “​The daughter claimed she’d been taught that a writer

needs quiet, privacy and long stretches of solitude to think. The father

decided too much college and too many gringo friends had ruined her.”

These things, along with many other obstacles, cause Esperanza’s life in

Chicago to be very confusing in the sense that she doesn’t know who to

listen to or what to do when it comes to her writing career. This can be

shown on page 73 when Esperanza says “​Everything is holding its breath

inside. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all

new and shiny.”​ She struggles with this feeling for years on end but with

the help of her family and some of the experiences she goes through,

Esperanza is able to find out who she wants to be as a person and as a

writer. This relates to what she said on the last page of the book, “​I put it

down on paper and then the ghost does not ache so much. I write it down

and Mango says goodbye sometimes. She does not hold me with both

arms. She sets me free​”

B. Now, with a completely different story of change and someone finding

their true identity, comes the book, ​Metamorphosis.​ ​Metamorphosis ​is a

very short story, set sometime in the 1800s, that is all about a traveling

salesman named, Gregor Samsa. His change has to do with him one

morning, mysteriously, waking up as a bug. Unlike Esperanza, this and

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many other changes to his life came abruptly after he woke up that

morning. In fact, they were so abrupt, Gregor didn’t think it was real. This

can be shown in the text, when he says, “​What happened to me? He

thought. It wasn’t a dream”​ (Page 5). So, additional to this obvious change

of him going from a man to a bug, his appetite, home life and the way he

was treated by everyone changed drastically in a matter of a few days. For

example, he lost his job, stayed in his room 24/7, and had a family who

now wouldn’t even talk to him. For instance, he would always try to hear

what they were saying through his bedroom door. On page 20 it reads,

“​...whenever he heard anyone speaking he would scurry straight to the

​ o, because of all
appropriate door and press his whole body against it.” S

those things and more, Gregor didn’t know who he was or what he wanted

his true identity to be. Unlike Esperanza, he didn’t have an outlet like

writing to release and write down how he was feeling, so he was forced to

keep it all bottled up inside. This wasn’t a good thing to do yet somehow,

Gregor managed to stay alive and do the things he could do to the best of

his ability. However, his father still unhappy with what Gregor had

become, had begun to convince his mother and sister that Gregor wasn’t

himself anymore and that he was just a burden if nothing else to them. In

fact, on page 39, he says, “​You’ve got to get rid of the idea that that’s

Gregor. We’ve only harmed ourselves by believing it for so long.” ​This

and his own thoughts, furthered Gregor down the path of not knowing
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who he was or if he should even still be alive. Eventually, Gregor came to

peace with what had happened but sadly, when that time came it was too

late because he died a few hours afterward. But nonetheless, his struggle

of finding out who he wanted to be and what he wanted to do with the

situation he was in, was very similar to Esperanza.

III. Discussion:

A. However, additional to the ones mentioned before, these two books still

have a lot of differences that have to do with the way that they were

written not specifically what they were written about. For example, the

author's styles of writing in both books were drastically different. In ​The

House on Mango Street, t​ hings like modern writing and figurative

language are used as ways to help Esperanza describe her friends and

certain situations throughout the book. For example, Esperanza compares

her friend, Minerva, to a ​“house on fire​” (page 84) because she is sad all

the time and in her mind, something is always wrong. Minerva, who is

similar in age to Esperanza, already has a husband and two kids of her

own. Her husband is mostly non-existent so Minerva has to raise the kids

on her own and therefore, cries all the time causing Esperanza to think

what she thinks. Another time Esperanza used figurative language in the

book, was to describe her views on the relationship between boys and

girls. She believes the two live in separate worlds and that she doesn’t

have a best friend in either one of them. She compares herself to a “r​ed
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balloon, tied to an anchor”​ (page 9). Considering, Esperanza’s sisters

follow whatever she does, she believes that if she goes out and makes

friends with the wrong people, they will end up just like them. So for now,

she’s just floating from above, watching everything happen.

B. This use of word choice and figurative language is completely different

from the ones used in ​Metamorphosis. ​Now, granted ​The House on Mango

Street ​was 110 pages long while ​Metamorphosis w

​ as only 43 but still,

nothing in that sense was used. ​Metamorphosis ​was written in the style,

“old English”, with very little to no figurative language in it. Basically, the

author, Franz Kafka, wrote the story so that everything he said, was

exactly what he meant. This is the exact opposite of ​The House on Mango

Street​, where details that could be turned into metaphors or similes, were.

C. Another difference these two books have laid in things like their syntax,

diction, and tone. All three of these things, in their owns ways, are very

different in both books. For starters, syntax. In ​Metamorphosis, t​ he

sentence structure is very long and put together. There weren’t many two

or three sentences. Most sentences were put together like this, “​For some

reason, the tall empty room where he was forced to remain made him feel

uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor, even though he had been living in

it for five years​.”(Page 18) Now, on the other hand, with ​The House on

Mango Street, ​in order to get that length of a sentence, a few shorter

sentences were needed. For example, “​Not a flat. Not an apartment in

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back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own. With my

porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my

stories.”​ (Page 108)

D. Now, along with the sentence structure, comes diction. Diction is word

choice and with these two stories, it’s two different things. As shown in

the sentences above, ​The House on Mango Street ​uses more modern and

​ here older word

upbeat word choice as opposed to ​Metamorphosis, w

choice is used. For example, in sentences where Esperanza would say

words like awkward or good, Gregor would say things like splendor or

perversity.

E. These words, additional to being way different than each, also have a

different effect on the tone of the stories. Although, there were sad stories

in ​The House on Mango Street, t​ he tone of the story was judgemental but

at the same time a little hopeful and wishing for the best. The use of words

and phrases like ugly, pretty and morning glories help to support that. On

the other hand, ​Metamorphosis ​always seemed to have a very negative

tone to it. The book used more phrases and words like, prejudice,

engrossed and “​there was a threat of a lethal blow to his back or his head

from the stick in his father's hand at any moment.”​ (Page 16)​ T
​ hings like

this really caused the whole novel to just have a very negative and

depressed tone which was quite the opposite of ​The House on Mango

Street.
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IV. Conclusion:

A. Nonetheless, whether these books have a million differences or not, they

do still share a common theme of growth and the search for identity for the

two characters, Gregor and Esperanza. Even though they were in two

completely different ways, these two characters still made a noticeable

change made from start to finish of their books. Now, in my opinion,

although these characters did have their change and all, I don’t necessarily

think their books were all that good or interesting. With ​Metamorphosis,

the storyline was absolutely terrible and although it was only 43 pages, it

still took me almost 2 months to read the entire thing. In those months

when I was reading it, half the time, I could barely even understand what I

was reading and even when I could, it’s not like the content was all that

exciting. Now, on the other hand, ​The House on Mango Street ​wasn’t all

that bad. The content and what the book was talking about, besides

Esperanza’s search for identity, was most of the time really good and

relatable. The part that I didn’t like was the storyline. You can only really

understand this if you read the book, but there just wasn’t a storyline. For

example, the author talked about a lot of things that happened throughout

Esperanza's life but they weren’t in order; it was just a jumble of stories,

here and there, with no set chronological order. I don’t think what was

being talked about was bad but I definitely think that if it were put in

better order, the effect of what the author was trying to say with all the
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stories would've been better. But nonetheless, these books were a part of

my project and I can’t change that now. But I can change what I read in

the future, and for that, I plan to read books probably similar to ​The House

on Mango Street, ​just hopefully with a better set up.

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Works cited

Cisneros, Sandra. ​The House on Mango Street​. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 2015

Kafka, Franz, and Stanley Corngold. ​The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.​ Bantam Books, 1972