One theme that I noticed within The House on Mango Street, “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall,” Chris Rock’s Tupac Shakur Boulevard, and Green day’s “Wake Me Up When September Ends” is the concept of dreams. Although dreaming is often associated with a happy message or a frightened moment, each of the texts all tie in with low socioeconomic status or a specific society that may be judged or not accepted based upon their goals or motives.
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, dives into the life of a young girl named Esperanza and how she grows up. To set up the theme of dreams, the author focuses on this narrators rough childhood and how she struggles with life issues, gender roles, and how even her ethnicity also brings her conflicts. Through her struggles and conflicts, Esperanza seeks to break away from Mango Street and how she has dreams to remove herself from these hard times. What I found particularly interesting was how persistent she was in leaving the street while she went through trust issues with her family and friends. Her dream was always kept alive.
Similar to Cisneros book, “For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall” included the theme of dreams when they deliver the experiences that students with low socioeconomic states push through. This writer intends to capture the reader when starting the article with “I don’t want to work at Wal-Mart.” In a way, that is a dream or goal within itself. I have witnessed people say that they go to college because they do not want to be flipping burgers for the rest of their life or working the drive through at McDonalds. This related to this article because this personal story shares about a girl that pursues college after high school, but seems to suffer through school after she receives a job. What is very interesting about this article is the fact that attending college is a dream for majority of high school students, yet we fail to realize that school can be very tough for specific people; often times people with a low socioeconomic status or students that pay for their own college.
The next text was hard for me. Although I understand the goal or motive behind Chris Rock’s petition to name a boulevard, I am curious if this ties in to class division or again, socioeconomic class. What I found interesting was that Chris Rock seems to interview or question white individuals. Was this because they are considered the higher class in this area, or because they more likely to deny the petition because Tupac is a black rapper? This video was difficult for me to analyze, but I may understand the point of this text if we were supposed to identify the dream of this video as Chris Rock’s petition to change the boulevards name.
Lastly, “Wake Me Up When September Ends” seems to go within its own category. The beginning of the music video did mention dreams when the young male said, “You know our life is short. They say you wake up one day, and, on that day, all of your dreams and everything you would wish for and wanted, gone, just like that. People, people get old and things change and situations change.” This quote is very important. The writer or director of the music video implied that dreams may disappear or be washed away with age. Sometimes, dreams can also be altered. Although I went through a high school Green Day phase, I never once realized what this song was implying before I listened to the start of the music video. The idea and concept of dreams was very evident. However, are there any kinds of dreams that may stick with you for a lifetime?
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