Table Of Content
The short chapters also reflect the short attention span of a young girl, and this storytelling technique seems appropriate considering Esperanza’s age. Esperanza has not really learned how to tell stories correctly, and she relies on fragments that are grouped together loosely. The chapters are only tenuously connected, and an element of one often triggers another observation in the next. In “The House on Mango Street,” Esperanza complains that the house has only one bedroom, while in “Hairs” she explains what it’s like to sleep in that bedroom with her whole family. Describing her siblings’ hair then reminds her that she cannot talk to her brothers outside the house, and “Boys and Girls” follows. The entire novel continues this way, with both random and not so random connections and logic.
Major Characters The House on Mango Street
You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. The sentence style suits the vignette style writing as they are short, curt, and concise given mostly in colloquialism. The popularity of the novel lies in this simplicity as it suits the student as well as adult readers. Her dream is about a wooden, white, and big house with a good yard and trees, while this one is suffocating for her.
Gender and Sexuality
The book has sold more than 6 million copies, has been translated into over 20 languages and is required reading in many schools and universities across the United States. Her own hair doesn’t do what she wants it to do, while her sister’s is smooth and oily. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous, The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty. Esperanza doesn't want to belong -- not to her rundown neighborhood, and not to the low expectations the world has for her.
By Sandra CisnerosIntroduction by John Phillip Santos
Along with chronicling Esperanza’s growth, the book’s vignettes also move through brief descriptions of her neighbors. While some of these portraits involve eccentric or memorable men (Meme Ortiz, Geraldo, or Earl), most of them involve women who are trapped in some way. There is Mamacita, who does not leave her apartment because she is afraid of the English language, and Rafaela, whose husband keeps her locked up because she is beautiful. Alicia must stay up all night studying so she can graduate from college and get a good job someday, but her father makes her wake up early to make tortillas and do the chores. Rosa Vargas is imprisoned by the impossible task of taking care of her many unruly children. There is also Minerva, who writes poems like Esperanza, but is already married with two children and a husband who beats her.
Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books
Meanwhile, during the beginning of the following school year, Esperanza befriends Sally, a girl her age who is more sexually mature than Lucy or Rachel. Esperanza is not completely comfortable with Sally’s sexual experience, and their friendship results in a crisis when Sally leaves Esperanza alone, and a group of boys sexually assaults Esperanza in her absence. After moving to the house, Esperanza quickly befriends Lucy and Rachel, two Chicana girls who live across the street.
Cisneros
The House on Mango Street is a 1984 novel by Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros. Structured as a series of vignettes, it tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a 12-year-old Chicana girl growing up in the Hispanic quarter of Chicago. Based in part on Cisneros's own experience, the novel follows Esperanza over the span of one year in her life, as she enters adolescence and begins to face the realities of life as a young woman in a poor and patriarchal community. Elements of the Mexican-American culture and themes of social class, race, sexuality, identity, and gender are interwoven throughout the novel.
Category: Fiction
Aunt Lupe – Aunt Lupe is primarily present in the vignette "Born Bad," in which Esperanza scolds herself for mimicking her dying aunt. She, her parents, her brothers, Carlos and Kiki, and her sister, Nenny, moved to Mango Street when the pipes broke in their previous apartment and the landlord refused to fix them. The family had dreamed of a white house with lots of space and bathrooms, but the house on Mango Street has only one bedroom and one bathroom. Esperanza notes that this is not the house that she envisioned, and although her parents tell her it’s only temporary, she doubts they’ll move anytime soon.
She is fully aware that she does not belong there, everything about it is described in negative terms delineating everything that it isn't versus what it is. It's by knowing where she doesn't fit that she knows to where she might fit.[58] It is similar to the concept of light and dark. We know that darkness is the absence of light, in this case her identity exists outside of this house on mango street. Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Before settling into their new home, a small and run-down building with crumbling red bricks, the family moved frequently, always dreaming of having a house of their own. Pining for a white, wooden house with a big yard and many trees, Esperanza finds her life on Mango Street suffocating and yearns to escape. Esperanza begins the novel with detailed descriptions of the minute behaviors and characteristics of her family members and unusual neighbors, providing a picture of the neighborhood and examples of the many influential people surrounding her. She describes time spent with her younger sister, Nenny, and two older girls she befriends in the neighborhood; Alicia, a promising young college student with a dead mother, and Marin, who spends her days babysitting her younger cousins.
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Ultimately, Esperanza understands that even if and when she leaves Mango Street, she will continue to take responsibility for the women in her neighborhood. Esperanza observes the people around her and realizes that if not knowing or not mastering the language creates powerlessness, then having the ability to manipulate language will give her power. Her Aunt Lupe tells her to keep writing because it will keep her free, and Esperanza eventually understands what her aunt means. Writing keeps Esperanza spiritually free, because putting her experiences into words gives her power over them. If she can use beautiful language to write about a terrible experience, then the experience seems less awful. Esperanza’s spiritual freedom may eventually give her the power to be literally free as well.
When she attends a funeral where the three sisters see her and predict that she’s going to leave mango street. However, her meeting with Lucy and Rachel and their outgoing aunt shows that she has identified herself with Mango Street. As of now, she decides to resort to poetry to escape the situation emotionally but later escape physically too. The novel ends when Esperanza vows to help the residents of Mango Street, for they are very much with her in her memories. As time passes, Esperanza starts becoming mature not only physically but also sexually. She shapes her mindset to become women who do not surrender to a man’s dominance, yet showcases her ability to be an attractive woman to men.
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Eventually, Esperanza decides she does not need to set herself apart from the others in her neighborhood or her family heritage by changing her name, and she stops forcing herself to develop sexually, which she isn’t fully ready for. She accepts her place in her community and decides that the most important way she can define herself is as a writer. As a writer, she observes and interacts with the world in a way that sets her apart from non-writers, giving her the legitimate new identity she’s been searching for. Writing promises to help her leave Mango Street emotionally, and possibly physically as well. Alicia is a hardworking girl who has high aspirations to leave this neighborhood and get a better job so have to study in the morning but her father makes her do the chores. Rafaela, the woman who won’t step out of the house because her husband locks her up as he is insecure about her beauty.
It means sadness, it means waiting.”Told in a series of vignettes—sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes joyous—Cisneros’s masterpiece is a classic story of childhood and self-discovery and one of the greatest neighborhood novels of all time. Like Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street or Toni Morrison’s Sula, it makes a world through people and their voices, and it does so in language that is poetic and direct. This gorgeous coming-of-age novel is a celebration of the power of telling one’s story and of being proud of where you’re from.
These three, along with Esperanza’s little sister Nenny, have many small adventures in the first part of the book, including searching through a labyrinthine junk store and learning from an older girl named Marin. While exploring her world, Esperanza experiences the shame of poverty, the unfairness of racism, and the beauty of poetry and music. The struggle for self-definition is a common theme in a coming-of-age novel, or bildungsroman, and in The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s struggle to define herself underscores her every action and encounter.
