Comparison Essay

The novella House on Mango Street and the movie Freedom Writers differ very much to each other on the surface, but when the audience begins to analyze the film and the book, they notice how similar the two actually are. Freedom Writers is more serious, as the characters are gang members; they have been abused, shot at and have lost their friends to gang violence. Esperanza, on the other hand, has witnessed many horrifying situations, but she has not had to deal with them herself. A significant difference between the movie and the book is that the ‘freedom writers’ are all of various races - contrastingly Esperanza lives in her Latino neighborhood and solely mentions the disdain towards other races, and only one encounter is mentioned throughout the novella. An essential similarity between the two is how all the characters in Freedom Writers deal with and ‘digest’ their harsh lives by writing in their diaries, just like Esperanza. Themes are another resemblance between the movie and the book; abuse, lack of education, friendship, getting out of the ghetto, and the importance of family are all repeated numerous times throughout the book as well as the film. No matter if the characters are experiencing it first hand, or if they are just observing; the idea that living in the ghetto is a harsh life is expressed in both House on Mango Street and Freedom Writers.

One of the main characters in Freedom Writers is Eva, a Latino girl who faces many obstacles in her life. She reminds me of Esperanza, because they live in similar neighborhoods, and family is an extremely important aspect of both their lives. They are different in some ways though, mainly Eva faces more severe problems than Esperanza because she is a pugnacious member of a gang. Esperanza lives in a ghetto neighborhood and witnesses gang violence, but isn’t personally involved in it, which makes it more tolerable for the reader. She is also less mature than Eva, who understands the true meaning of things going on in her neighborhood, contrary to Esperanza who is often naïve in serious situations, and misinterprets the evil intentions of people.

The movie had a stronger impact on me – mostly because I could visually see what the characters were going through rather than imagining it. Also the difficulties they encounter are more serious than Esperanza’s – because they actually face the risk of getting shot every day by rival gangs, which is very intimidating and emotional for the viewer. Esperanza, on the other hand, only hears about those risks and observes the terrible things going on in her neighborhood, rather than experiencing them herself. This makes her issues a bit more tolerable than those of the freedom writers, and therefore the reader feels dubious about how serious her problems really are, or what it’s like for her because we don’t actually see what she has to deal with. Due to that fact, the movie had a more powerful effect on me.

There was a plethora of literary features used in House on Mango Street, and when the audience pays attention to the details in the film – they notice a few literary features there as well. Some examples would be when one character in Freedom Writers said that it was ‘raining bullets’. This is an analogy, because the character is comparing two like things – the bullets and rain, they are similar, because in this situation there were so many bullets in the air that it looked almost like rain. In House on Mango Street, every chapter is replete with literary features, like this sentence – Angel Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donut, just like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an “Oh.” There are two similes, a hyperbole and rhyme present in this sentence. As a reader, I thought the literary features the author used in House on Mango Street were very effective, as it makes the author’s writing unique, gives more information about the characters and helps us, as readers, visualize the setting. In the movie, the literary features were not as prominent, but they were definitely present. When the characters used literary features while speaking it made them seem more intelligent, and therefore it showed that they were learning in class, and improving their vocabulary. This enhanced the film, because the quality of their speech increasing is a nuance symbolizing the success of their teacher.

The settings in both stories are either very similar or completely different. The school is a key difference between the movie and the book. In the movie, the school is a vital setting in the story, but in the book it only plays a minor role. Esperanza attends a Catholic school for Latinos only, contrastingly the school in Freedom Writers is attended by various races and it has no religious affiliations. The neighborhoods are similar to each other because they are both ghettos, and are infamous for the gang activity taking place there. In some ways, they are very different, because the neighborhood in Freedom Writers is inhabited by various races, that all loathe each other – leading to much bloodshed - whereas Esperanza’s neighborhood houses only Latinos.

Both Freedom Writers and House on Mango Street effectively bring across the message that living in the ghetto is a cruel and unforgiving life that takes a lot of effort to get out of. In their own unique ways, the film and the novella capture the reader’s interest and teach us a lesson about how we should appreciate every moment of our lives because there are some people that are not as fortunate as us. Both the film and the book are very emotional and leave the audience with a sense of awe for the complex situations these people manage to get themselves out of.