The House On Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

The vignettes in Sandra Cisneros' The House On Mango Street gently construct the narrator. This is occasionally accomplished through pieces directly about the narrator, though it usually takes place through Esperanza's exploration of her new neighborhood. As time passes and we learn more about the people who live around Mango street, Esperanza's self is beautifully revealed through her personal interactions. The subtlety with which her character is built provides the power to her realizations about growing up with aspirations as a minority and a woman.

In the first piece, "The House On Mango Street," Esperanza has already faced judgment on her economic status: "The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There...I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to." A comment from a nun from Esperanza's school gives Esperanza an insight into levels of class. Esperanza initially seemed content with the benefits of the new house on Mango street, but this satisfaction is quickly dashed. Esperanza's family quits renting property and purchases a house. Despite this improvement in the family's status, the house is illegitimate by page five. It is no longer "real" from a simple comment by a figure of authority.

This places a fire in Esperanza, and she aspires to better things: she wants to "have a best friend..who will understand (her) jokes without (her) having to explain them" and to not "inherit her [Grandmother's] place" in society. These desires take place by pages eight and ten. However, as Esperanza explores her neighborhood the realities of her world challenge these aspirations. She identifies with her friend Alicia who is "smart and studies...at the university." Alicia's future is potentially a "whole life in a factory or [a kitchen]" though. Esperanza is not in Alicia's situation now - Alicia's "mama died" - but Esperanza could easily share her fate. It is Alicia's father who makes her work in the kitchen packing his "lunchbox tortillas." Esperanza is the oldest of the daughters in her family, and with the death of her mother she could easily find herself packing a lunch for her father.

Realizations like these lead Esperanza first to feel misunderstood, as in "Four Skinny Trees": "They are the only ones who understand me." Esperanza sees the life that will be available to her without independence or an education. So as she watches Sally's interaction with men, or her neighbors Mamasita or Rafaela, Esperanza increasingly identifies herself as someone who does not fit here. This otherness is so great that it causes a split with her highly admired friend Sally, in "The Monkey Garden." Esperanza tries to save Sally from the "ball and chain" by bringing a brick to the garden to confront the boys Sally is hanging out with, but she is rejected and looked at as "crazy." This is where Sally and Esperanza divide forever. Esperanza is so saddened that she wishes she would die. When she doesn't, she knows what she must do. In "A House of My Own," Esperanza details her escape: "Not a man's house...Nobody's garbage to pick up after...only a space for myself to go." I really liked this book, and I hope I can understand what it is trying to save.