Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street was first published in 1984. The first-person narrator shares her experiences with the reader. The story is set in Chicago, probably in the late 1960s or early 1970s. (Sandra Cisneros herself was born in Chicago in 1954 and raised in a predominantly Mexican-American neighborhood). 

Please actively look for city elements to mention in your mini-essay, and please also conduct a bit of research to explore specific city features in Chicago in the 1970s or earlier. The online link to the book is: https://p3cdn4static.sharpschool.com/UserFiles/Servers/Server_4204286/Image/Grade9%20HouseOnMango.pdf

The book is dedicated to “A las Mujeres” (in Spanish) and “To the Women” (in English).

In some analyses of the story, the duration of the story is interpretated as a single year and the narrator is about 12 years old. For instance, Shmoop states that: "The novel’s heroine and narrator, an approximately twelve-year-old Chicana (Mexican-American girl). [She] is a budding writer who wishes for a home of her own. The House on Mango Street  chronicles a year in her life as she matures emotionally and sexually." I have marked the key statements in bold here and disagree with this interpretation. For instance, in "First Job," the young narrator cannot be younger than 15 or she would not have been able to pretend to be 16 (and thus old enough to work outside a family business). I would speculate that the story is told over a period of about five years–from age 11 or 12 to age 16 or 17. 

Each of the chapters is a vignette ("a brief evocative description, account, or episode" or "a small illustration or portrait photograph which fades into its background without a definite border"–these definitions are from the Oxford Dictionary). Some of the chapters verge on poetry. The narrator does not give the reader her name until the fourth chapter, "My Name," where she identifies as Esperanza.

In these tiny stories, Esperanza calls the reader’s attention to many city features but only by mentioning them briefly. In reading the book, please look closely at such references. For example, in the first chapter, Esperanza describes the rented apartment on Loomis Street, the neighborhood where her family had lived just before they moved to their house on Mango Street, a house they have bought with a mortgage. The description of Loomis Street, the tense relationship between the landlord and the family, the encounter with the nun, all depict the realities of poor neighborhoods. Mango Street has a more stable community than Loomis. 

In "Cathy Queen of the Cats," Esperanza tells us she has just moved to Mango Street and meets a white girl whose family is moving away because too many "brown" (Hispanic) families like Esperanza’s are moving into the neighborhood. This reference evokes the history of segregation in Chicago–a city that then and still today is divided into White, Black and Hispanic areas (you can and should look up the demographic maps).

When Esperanza and her friends Lucy and Rachel ride a shared bicycle, the reader gets glimpses of the various businesses and services in that neighborhood. Similarly, when Esperanza and her sister, Nenny, go to Gil’s Furniture Bought & Sold, the reader is introduced to one of the stores in her neighborhood. Gil, who owns the store (but may not own the building), is one of the few Black people in the community. 

Some of the stories are subtly disturbing. In "Alicia Who Sees Mice," there is a hint that Alicia is abused by her father. "The First Job" has a very disturbing end. Both of these stories are "coded" in the sense that the readership ranges from middle school age readers to adults. This is similar with regard to the story "Red Clowns."

Esperanza also deals with family grief and experiences various "coming of age" moments. The relationship between Esperanza and Sally is particularly detailed and deserves close attention. Esperanza’s relationships with other women in the Hispanic community are also important focal points. 

In two of the stories–"Elenita, Cards, Palm, Water" and "The Three Sisters" (near the end of the book, which we will finish next class)–Esperanza encounters what seem to be genuine supernatural forces (the three sisters are very similar to the three Fates or Moirae in Greek mythology–Clotho spins the thread of life; Lachesis measures the thread; Atropos, the eldest, snips the thread of the life–see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Greek_Mythology/Minor_Gods/Fates#:~:text=The%20Moirae%2C%20or%20Fates%2C%20are,called%20Clotho%2C%20Lachesis%20and%20Atropos.). 

In your mini-essay, please be sure to mention what you see as city elements while interweaving your comments regarding Esperanza’s life in her neighborhood. 

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