Introduction          

The House on Mango Street' (1984) by Sandra Cisneros is told from the perspective of a young Mexican-American girl, Esperanza. It details her experiences living on Mango Street with her family, and her struggles to find where she fits in in the world around her. Told through a series of short stories, or 'vignettes', each looking into a different corner of this predominantly-Latino neighborhood in Chicago, the book follows Esperanza as she matures into a young woman. With its huge range of characters, the reader meets many people living on this street, who represent for our narrator possible futures she might grow into.

Program of Reading       

Main Characters

Themes

• Identity:

The search for identity, and particularly for self-identification, is important for Esperanza, our book's narrator. How can she form for herself an identity distinct from her family, her ethnic heritage and her residency in Mango Street? She is desperate to forge herself as something distinct, though towards the end finds a more productive relationship with 'Mango Street'.

• Language:

Language is shown to be important and powerful in this novel, with the ability to integrate or to exile characters from society, to free individuals from their social positions, and to relieve the suffering of characters in pain. Lack of language here is isolation and suffering, whilst control of language is power and liberation.

• Community/Belonging:

This work explores the idea of community, and of belonging; what forms community, what is needed to 'belong? Esperanza sees where her own community falls short of helping its members, but ends the novel determined to be responsible for her neighbors.

Motifs

• Dreams

Dreams reoccur throughout this narrative, revealing the secret desires of characters, and enabling individuals to escape from the humdrum of their daily realities.

• Women by Windows

This book is filled with women by windows, who we witness closed away, shut out from the male-dominated world around them. Esperanza is determined not to end up like these women, but to try to help them.

• Names

Names have transformative power in this text. Esperanza wants to change her name to be "more like the real me". They can empower and define. Many other characters have two or more different names, revealing the mix of languages and cultures in Mango Street, and the problems of self-definition experienced by Esperanza's neighbors.

Symbols

• Shoes

Shoes are shown to form social identities, and represent mature female sexuality. A pair of high heels enable Esperanza, Lucy and Rachel to mature into women for a few hours; the old school shoes of Esperanza don't let her forget her child's place at the dance; the black suede shoes of Sally become a source of envy for our less sexually mature narrator.

• Poetry

Short, beautiful little poems litter this novel, and represent a form by which the women of Mango Street try to decorate their less-than-beautiful surroundings, and to liberate themselves, at least spiritually, from their difficulties.

• Trees

Trees inspire and impress Esperanza in the novel, for their ability to grow strong and tall despite the concrete around them. They symbolize perseverance despite adversity and the possibility of rising above one's situation.