This study discusses The House on Mango Street, a novel written by
Sandra Cisneros. This novel presents a main character named Esperanza who
experiences personality development. This study is meant to answer three
problems concerning the main character’s personality development. The first
problem is Esperanza’s basic personality in the novel. The second problem is
Esperanza’s personality development. The third problem is the influencing factors
toward Esperanza’s personality development.
This study is a qualitative study applying content analysis method. This
study applies the theory of personality and personality development emphasizing
on Hurlock’s theory on personality development. The object of this study is
Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. The data collected are lines related
to the topic under study found in the novel. The data analysis was conducted by
analyzing the required lines found in The House on Mango Street in accordance
with the theory. In achieving reliability, the researcher read and reread the novel
comprehensively, then recorded the data. The triangulation method was applied to
gain the trustworthiness of the data through consulting the finding with first and
second consultant.
The result of this study shows that Esperanza’s personality develops.
There are two significant factors that influence Esperanza’s personality
development. The first is the early experiences within family. The second is the
important events outside home. Early experience within family gives influence
toward Esperanza through supportive parents and family’s financial difficulty,
while important events outside home also gives influence toward Esperanza’s
personality mostly through the peers and neighborhood. From the analysis on the
factors that influence Esperanza’s personality, the researcher finds that Esperanza
is unconfident, pessimistic, and naïve at the beginning of the story, and then she
turns into a confident, optimistic, and sophisticated person at the end