The House on Mango Street

I am currently reading The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. This book tells the story of a young girl growing up in a neighborhood in Chicago over the course of one year.  Esperanza—the main character—deals with many different situations as she grows up and matures. At the beginning of the book, she befriends two girls on her street, Lucy and Rachel. Esperanza tells the stories of her life over the year, and explains her troubles. From the very beginning of the book she makes it clear that she is ashamed by where she lives and she explains her discomfort with her family’s situation.

            In the beginning she starts off moving into a new house on Mango Street. Although it is a nicer house than her family’s last, she is still not 100% satisfied. She explains that she wanted a house was like a house on T.V. with 3 washrooms, running water, and a staircase. She says, “This was the house papa talked about when he held a lottery ticket and this was the house Mama dreamed up in the stories.” She is clearly not too happy with her situation, and makes it clear that she wants to move out of the house as soon as she can. Esparanza also makes it clear that she is embarrassed by her house. She recalled a moment when a teacher asked her where she lived and she was humiliated to say the house with paint peeling and wooden bars on the windows. “ ‘you live there?.’ The way she said it made me feel like nothing.” This is really sad and I think that she wants to be in a different situation or live somewhere else quite badly.

            Throughout the book Esparanza goes on living her life, and recalls the everyday occurrences in her neighborhood. She explains many different people’s perspectives and lives throughout the book. Each account somehow relates back to her, and how the lives of her neighbors and friends could be a possible sight into what her life might end up like. There is one story of her neighbor’s cousin who drives a fancy car on the street and they all went for a drive, until police started chasing him, and after they all got out of the car it crashed and he was arrested because it was stolen.Another story was a old woman who got left by her husband and left with 5 children—all of which, behave horribly. I think that these stories as well as the others told in the book reflect what Espeanza’s life could resemble if she continues down this road.

            So far I really like this book. I also like the format of the book. Each story is very short—1 or 2 pages each. I think that the author made it this way to show the short and meaningless experiences of Esperanza’s life, However when you put all the stories together, all of them shaped the person Eperanza turned into by the end of the book.