The Monkey Garden

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorHigh School, 10th grade July 2001

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The Monkey Garden by Sandra Cisneros is a story about a girl named Esperonza who gets lost in the struggle between childhood and adolescence. The theme is childrens unwillingness to drop the lifestyle of childhood and take on the challenges and demands of yung adulthood.

In the story Esperonza tells us about this mysterious garden, or backyard for those noncreative minds. To her and the other children on the block the garden was a place to be feared. Eventually, after the neighbors move, the now older and more daring children take over the garden as theirs.

Esperonza shows her unwillingness t grow up when she wants to play with the other children in the garden instead of flirting with the boys as her friend Sally encourages her too.

At one point in the story Esperonza asks "Who was it that said I was getting to old to play the games? Who was it I didn't listen to?" Here, Esperonza feels pulled apart by realizing she was supose to do something that a feeling inside herself helped her to ignore.

After Esperonza realizes what the boys had in mind for Sally her child instincts told her to tattletale. She runs to tito's mom who just shrugs it off as kids being kids. Esperonza feels an abrupt awakening because she never thought of it as okay. After being told by an authority figure that it was no big deal, Esperonza feels lost, not knowing what is right and wrong anymore.

When Esperonza goes back and humiliates herself, as we all have done at some point, she runs and hides. She is embarrassed and wants to die because she doesn't want to face the childish things she has done. This proves that she is changing and growing up because a child wouldn't feel ashamed.

All of a sudden Esperonza looks down and her feet seem little and far away. this feeling showa that she feels her body and mind are now unperportional.

As the story ends Esperonza has changed. She feels that the garden that once brought her freedom and joy, was no longer hers. She had grown out of it.