Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street is written in a series of vignettes that follows the struggles and triumphs of a strong-will girl named Esperanza. Esperanza and her family of 6 have finally moved to "a real house". Until this point, she and her family have had to move each year from one low-rent apartment to another. Esperanza hoped that this house would be everything that her parents had described from their times of dreaming and hoping year after year. Unfortunately, she finds herself in the same disappointing situation as before, only this time they no longer have to pay rent; this house is theirs. Still reeling from this, Esperanza remembers the time that a nun from her school saw her outside her last apartment and asked where she lived. Once Esperanza showed her, the nun asked, "You live there?!" It seems like a simple question, but the way she asked it made Esperanza immediately ashamed. This is what ignites Esperanza's desire to one day own a home that she can be "proud" of. In the vignette titled "My Name", Esperanza discusses the reasons why she is not happy with her name. The first reason is that is "has too many letters". She talks about how the kids from school mispronounce it all the time. She also talks about the great grandmother from whom she inherited her name. They were both born in the Chinese year of the horse; "this is said to be bad luck if you are a woman." She doesn't agree with this, however, because she feels that much like men in her culture, they "don't like their women strong." Just like her great grandmother who was "a wild horse of a woman" was forced to marry. Esperanza paints a picture of a woman who sits looking out the window with her head resting on her elbow. She makes it clear that she has already inherited her great grandmother's name, she does not want to inherit her place by the window! Through the rest of Esperanza's story, this is the trait that carries her through every new event in her life: her strength. She begins her story as being ashamed, hesitant, and naïve, but she holds tight to her dream of one day leaving and never coming back. She befriends other children from the neighborhood, and together they each see, hear, and experience very different things from many of the same events. In one vignette, "Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin", Esperanza meets with her friends and Louie. Louie's cousin drives up in a yellow Cadillac with a scarf tied to the review mirror. They go on joy rides until the cops show up, and Louie's cousin tells the kids to get out of the car. He speeds off until he wrecks the car and is taken into custody for stealing the car. At this point in their lives, Esperanza and the other children do not understand what all has take place, but as they grow, these moments of adult realization come crashing into view.
The difference expectations for the boys and girls start to become glaringly obvious as Esperanza really observes her surroundings. It is accepted that the boys will work, and the girls will marry. Esperanza shows us in several vignettes the many ways in which she does not accept this fate for herself. She sees far too many of the women in her family and too many of her female friends who are trapped by their husbands and children once they marry, and she wants no part of it. Unfortunately, the moment she loses her view of the world through the innocence of childhood comes when she is SA at a carnival while waiting for a friend to meet her after a date. She vaguely describes the assault committed by a group of boys. Sadly, like for so many girls and women that this happen to, she deals with it the best she can on her own and never mentions it again. Esperanza becomes more and more determined that she will leave Mango Street and own her own home. She declares that she will not forget what it is like to be poor and will help those who don't have much. When she is finally on her way out, she meets with a friends who tells her that she must leave to come back. Esperanza is the hope of the neighborhood because if she can leave, maybe they can too.
Discussion and Classroom Application
I teach this novel to my Juniors simply because of the SA scene later in the book. I am sure to be very careful to prepare my students to determine the classroom climate concerning such events. If it proves to be too rough for some, I work with them individually through this vignette to help with any pre-existing trauma, or have them skip reading that part all together.
The big assignment that we work on through this unit is for students to create their own memoir project. They compile a collection of 10 or more vignettes that they can use to describe their life, special experiences, future hopes and dreams, and their overall perception of the world around them.
I try to present this novel as the complete opposite to what they know to be the Cinderella story. Esperanza is not a blonde white girl who has been raised to believe that marriage will save her from the hardships of home, rather Esperanza takes control of saving herself from everything that she sees as binding and suffocating.
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