The House on Mango Street
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| The House on Mango Street | |
 1984 edition |
|
| Author | Sandra Cisneros |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | illustration: Nivia Gonzalez design: Lorraine Louie lettering: Henry Sene Yee |
| Country | United States |
| Language | french |
| Genre(s) | Coming-of-age story, novella |
| Publisher | Arte Público Press (1st edition), Vintage Contemporaries (2nd edition) |
| Publication date | 1984 (1st edition), April 1991 (2nd edition) |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback, & library binding), audio cassette, and audio CD |
| Pages | 110 (2nd edition, paperback) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0679734775 (2nd edition, paperback) |
The House on Mango Street is a coming of
Contents |
[edit] Headline text
age novella by Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros, published in 1984. It deals with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in the Chicago Chicano ghetto.
[edit] Background
Sandra Cisneros, a Mexican-American author, is the third child and only daughter in a family of seven children. Throughout Cisneros' childhood she would move between Mexico City and Chicago, never allowing her much time to get settled in any place. Her loneliness from not having sisters or friends drove her to bury herself in books. In high school she wrote poetry and was the literary magazine editor, but, according to Cisneros, she didn't really start writing until her first creative writing class in college in 1974. After that it took a while to find her own voice. She explains, "I rejected what was at hand and emulated the voices of the poets I admired in books: big male voices like James Wright and Richard Hugo and Theodore Roethke, all wrong for me." Cisneros then realized that she needed to write what she knew, and adopted a writing style that was purposely opposite that of her classmates. Five years after receiving her M. A. from the writing program at the University of Iowa, she returned to Loyola University in Chicago, where she had previously earned a BA in English, to work as an administrative assistant. Prior to this job, she worked in the Chicano barrio in Chicago teaching to high school dropouts. Through these jobs, she gained more experience with the problems of young Latinos.
[edit] Plot introduction
The plot is about Esperanza Cordero and her struggles growing up on Mango Street, a poor Latino neighborhood in Chicago.
The title is in reference to the house that Esperanza and her family move into at the beginning of the novella.
[edit] Plot summary
The novella charts her life as Esperanza matures during the year, both physically and emotionally. She begins to write as a way of expressing herself and as a way to escape the suffocating effect of the neighborhood. The novella also includes the stories of many of Esperanza’s neighbors, giving a full picture of the neighborhood and showing the many influences surrounding her. Esperanza quickly befriends Lucy and Rachel, two Chicana girls who live across the street. Lucy, Rachel, Esperanza, and Esperanza’s little sister, Nenny, have many adventures in the small space of their neighborhood.
Esperanza later slips into puberty and begins to like it when boys watch her dance. Esperanza's newfound views leads her to becoming friends with Sally, a girl her age who uses boys as an escape from her abusive father. Esperanza is not completely comfortable with Sally’s sexuality. Their friendship is compromised when Sally ditches Esperanza for a boy at a carnival. As a result Esperanza is sexually assaulted by a group of boys at the carnival. Earlier at her first job, an elderly Asian man orders her to kiss him. Esperanza’s traumatic experiences and observations of the women in her neighborhood cement her desire to escape Mango Street. She later realizes that she will never fully be able to leave Mango Street behind, however, and vows that after she leaves she will return to help the people she has left behind.
[edit] Main Characters in "The House on Mango Street"
- Esperanza Cordero is the twelve-year-old protagonist and narrator. Esperanza is a smart, budding writer who wishes to get out of Mango Street and get a home of her own. The House on Mango Street chronicles a year in her life as she matures emotionally and sexually.
- Sally is a girl whom Esperanza Cordero describes as having "eyes like Egypt" with hair that is "shiny black like raven feathers"(Cisneros 81). Her father is extremely religious, and abusive, as Esperanza notes that Sally has come to school multiple times with bruises on her pretty face, despite her mother's best efforts to cover it up. She was friends with Cheryl, until she " made her ear bleed" (82) in an attempt to pierce it for Cheryl. Her father dislikes the fact that she talks to boys, and beats her if he discovers her talking to members of the other gender. Sally is responsible for what would seem Esperanza's rape in the chapter titled "Red clowns". Sally later marries a marshmallow salesman to escape her abusive father, "young and not married" in another state, before she reached eighteen (101). Esperanza speculates that Sally's husband is physically and verbally abusive, as he is excessively controlling. This is evidenced by the fact that when her husband is angry he "broke the door where his foot went through" and "won't let her talk to her other friends."
- Nenny is Esperanza's sister.
[edit] Format
The House on Mango Street is made up of vignettes that are not quite poems and not quite full stories. Esperanza narrates these vignettes in first-person present tense, focusing on her day-to-day activities but sometimes narrating sections that are just a series of observations. The vignettes can be as short as two or three paragraphs long and sometimes contain internal rhymes. In The Family of Little Feet for example, Esperanza says:
"Their arms were little, and their hands were little, and their height was not tall, and their feet very small" (39).
Each vignette can stand as an independent mini-story. The vignettes don't connect to one another, although they often mention characters introduced in earlier sections. The conflicts and problems in these short stories are never fully resolved, just as the futures of people in the neighborhood are often uncertain. The overall tone is earnest and intimate, with very little distance between the reader and the narrator. At times the tone also varies from pessimistic to hopeful, as Esperanza herself sometimes expresses her jaded views on life:
"I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go" (5).
[edit] Figurative Language
[edit] Similes and Metaphors
Esperanza uses many similes and metaphors to describe how she views life and the people around her. When describing her mother's hair, for example, she says:
"But my mother's hair...like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you...is the warm smell of bread before you bake it..." (6).
The similes and metaphors used throughout the novella allow for the reader to gain a vivid, clear picture of how Esperanza views her surroundings.
[edit] Symbolism and Personification
An important symbol in the book is the four trees outside of Esperanza's window. Throughout the book, she compares herself to them and admires them for growing while being anchored to the ground. Esperanza uses personification to make the trees seem human and therefore able to identify with her.
"Four skinny trees. They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger" (74).
Esperanza's kinship with the four skinny trees shows the bravery and strength Esperanza has inside of her, demonstrating how one can be rooted but still flourish.
[edit] Major themes
[edit] Concept of Home
Esperanza regards the house on Mango Street as simply a house she lives in and not her home. When she was younger and constantly on the move from apartment to apartment her parents promised her a real home with a green yard, real stairs, and running water with pipes that worked. She dislikes the house on Mango Street because its sad appearance and cramped quarters are completely contrary to the idealistic home she always pictured. She describes the house as:
"...small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to push hard to get in" (4).
Esperanza is ashamed to point out her house to strangers and retains the notion that one day she will have a real home.
Each vignette has a separate theme which is left for the reader to uncover.
[edit] Literary Significance and Reception
The House on Mango Street has sold over two million copies since its initial publication in 1984 and is still selling strongly. Acclaimed by critics and beloved by children and parents alike, it has been translated all over the world and become required reading in middle schools, high schools, and universities across the country.
[edit] Awards and nominations
- The American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (1985)
[edit] Publication history
1984, United States, Arte Público Press ISBN 0934770204, Pub date 1 January 1984, paperback
1991, United States, Vintage Contemporaries ISBN 0679734775, Pub date 3 April 1991, paperback
