House on Mango Street Post #2: Trees

            In the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, trees show up a lot through the novel as a symbol. The first quote to talk about trees in the book is in the vignette titled Meme Ortiz. "This is the tree we chose for the first Annual Tarzan Jumping Contest. Meme won. And broke both arms." (p 22) The way the tree is talked about before this quote is presented is that the tree is so memorable and wonderful because it is a big tree and towers over all the other ones. A quote that shows up later in the book however, proves that looks can be deceiving. "Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city." (p 74) These two quotes together show that the big trees are thought highly of and are the best tree, and small trees are just worthless and a waste of space. However, the big tree ends up being the cause of Meme's broken arms, and the skinny trees are comforting to Esperanza, she "understands them, and they understand her".
              The trees also symbolize Esperanza's life in a way. Esperanza compares herself with the skinny trees and talks about how they are basically the underdogs of other trees, they have a bunch of secrets they keep within them and that no one understands them but Esperanza. This can be therefore inferred that Esperanza is alone and everyone underestimates her.