The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street

File:MangoStreet.jpg 1984 edition
Author	Sandra Cisneros
Cover artist	illustration: Nivia Gonzalez design: Lorraine Louie lettering: Henry Sene Yee
Language	English
Genre	Coming-of-age story, novella
Publisher	Arte Público Press (1st edition), Vintage Contemporaries (2nd edition)
Publication date	1984 (1st edition), April 1991 (2nd edition)
Publication place	United States
Pages	110 (2nd edition, paperback)
ISBN	ISBN 0679734775 (2nd edition, paperback)
OCLC	81009584
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Class	PS3553.I78 H6 1991

The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age novel by Mexican-American writer Sandra Cisneros, published in 1984. It deals with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in Chicago with Chicanos and Puerto Ricans. Esperanza is determined to "say goodbye" to her impoverished Latino neighborhood. Major themes include her quest for a better life and the importance of her promise to come back for "the ones I left behind."

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 Each vignette can stand as an independent story. The vignettes don't follow a complete or chronological narrative, 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. The tone 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."

The set of vignettes charts her life as Esperanza Cordero grows during the year, both physically and emotionally. Though Esperanza's age is never revealed to the reader, it is implied that she is about thirteen. 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 Guerrero, two Texan 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 lead her to become friends with Sally, a girl her age who wears clothes like black nylon stockings, makeup, high heels, and short skirts, and 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 men at the carnival. Earlier at her first job, an elderly man tricked her into kissing him on the lips. 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. She vows that after she leaves she will return to help the people she has left behind.

Major themes

Esperanza regards the house on Mango Street as simply a house she lives in with her family. 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 wanted.

While she may not recognize it, Esperanza is one of the most free female characters in the novel. Most of the other female characters spend their lives in isolation, trapped. Rosa Vargas can't do anything for herself because she has too many children and no one to help her raise the children. Alicia has found herself trapped in the kitchen, as she picks up where her deceased mother left off, cooking and cleaning for her younger siblings, although she would like nothing more than to attend the university. Minerva has an abusive husband who she is constantly fighting with and she finally kicks out but then lets him back in to her life. Rafaela is stuck inside her house because her husband believes that she is too beautiful to go out. Sally is abused by her father, and she dreams of getting married. She eventually marries an older man who does not allow her to leave the house without him, and she is not allowed to have guests over.

Reception

Acclaimed by critics, it has been translated into various languages and been taught in schools across the United States and Canada. The book received highly positive reception upon release and has been re-issued in a 25th Anniversary Edition. The novel has especially earned high praise from the Latino/Latina community. Oscar Hijuelos, the first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, said that the novel has "conveyed the Southwestern Latino experience with verve, charm, and passion."

The New York Times gave the book a very positive review, stating that "Cisneros seduces with precise, spare prose, creat[ing] unforgettable characters we want to lift off the page. She is not only a gifted writer, but an absolutely essential one."{{ The book won her the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation (1985).

The novel has also been renowned for its humor, despite dealing with serious and mature subjects.

Autobiographical elements

Cisneros' early life was a subject she would later draw on as a writer in books like The House on Mango Street. She was the only daughter in a series of six kids. The story also is about the subject of migration, and about the struggles of her life during it, which included poverty, as well as misogyny.

Publication history

1984, The United States, Arte Público Press ISBN 0934770204, Pub date 1 January 1984, paperback

1991, The United States, ig ewner asd voht es guam se dip

External links

• The House on Mango Street study guide, themes, quotes, character analyses, literary devices, teacher resources