The House on Mango Street

I read this book as it was required summer reading for a local high school.

WHAT????

This book is a collection of short vignettes about a girl growing up in a Hispanic family. Perhaps this is of interest to SOMEBODY but not this middle aged man nor most teen boys. I felt like I was trapped in a chick book (not always bad), written by a poet (not always bad) celebrating diversity (not always good). The stories were short and the redeeming value was that there were so many partial pages that it was half as long as it looked. Cisneros has written poetry and this book has the feeling of poetry (not always good). I am sorry for the high school boys who were required to read it!!

The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street starts in a very unusual style, and it continues in that way for the entire story. Sandra Cisneros wrote the book in a simple and very up front style. The major theme/subject behind the story seems to be growing up and chasing you dreams, but never forgetting you roots, for without your roots you would have never grown and reached your potential. Cisneros teaches life lessons through vignettes (short, usually descriptive literary sketches) and with every vignette, Esperanza learns and grows a little more.

Esperanza is the main character of The House on Mango Street, and the entire story is focused on her maturing process. The majority of the story is seen through her eyes, with Esperanza acting as the narrator for the other characters comments. She has a very simple perspective on things we would find unfamiliar, and is not much of a thinker. However, she has her eyes set on what she wants and everyday is just one step on her long journey up the ladder to her dream.

Summary:
Sandra Cisneros starts the story at a slow pace beginning with a few informative vignettes, describing Esperanza, her family and their previous homes. However, she jumps around very quickly, as she begins painting a picture of nieghbors and the way things work on Mango Street. Through tales of marriage, children, kids playing, abusive/controlling husbands/fathers and mistake after mistake; the author paints a picture of a life Esperanza wants nothing to do with. As the story comes to a close, there is a noticeable difference in Esperanza's maturity as she begins piecing the puzzle of her life together. During the wake of her friend's younger sister, she meets 3 older women who begin reading her palm and preaching to her that she will be very successful and do great things, things that people around her will have no chance of doing. Then older lady with the marble and blue-veined hands takes her aside and reminds her to always come home for the ones who cannot leave as easily. She pounds the idea into her middle-school brain, the idea that she must remember to come back for the others. Shortly after this talk, Esperanza really begins understanding her potential and her duty to her neighborhood. Through a boring job, creepy old men, and unhappy women Esperanza learns what must be done to make her life what she has always wanted it to be.

Reaction:
At first look, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy The House on Mango Street, it seemed liked a dull read, and one that wouldn't appeal to a male reader. After all, the main character is a teenager girl. However, I gave it a chance and by the time I was half-way through the book I was on the ropes and couldn't decide whether I liked it or not. Eventually though, by the final few vignettes, I had become dissolved into the book along with Esperanza's journey. I fell in love with the young girl's realistic attitude. I began turning the pages faster and faster as I could not wait to find out what tale she learned from next and how she would use it.

Conclusion:
Sandra Cisneros wrote it as simply and as complexed as she could have, creating a complex situation but conveying it through simple phrases. She brought Esperanza to life and taught me that no matter where you go, always remember where you came from, because without them you would still be waking up in the same bed in your same sprint out of the black tunnel towards the light. So take your life in stride, but every once and awhile, slow it down and remember to tell your father you wish you can be just like him. Don't make fun of you brother or sister for a day. And always tell you mother you love her. "You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are" - The marble handed sister

Recommendation:
Now that I have taken a few moments to look back upon the book, and the message behind it, I completely recommend you sit down and spend some time reading The House on Mango Street. It is a great read, and will have you reviewing your life and finding ways to improve it. Remember you cannot go any where without starting somewhere.

Poignant, poetic, and refreshingly sincere, I liken this book to To Kill A Mockingbird sometimes, in that the child narrator is able to paint vibrant pictures of racism, sexism, abuse, prejudice, poverty, loneliness, cruelty, justice, maturation, and love with subtle (and often comical) strokes. Cisneros remains one of my favorite authors--in no small part to this book, which inspired me to become a writer and to aim somewhere near her standard of storytelling...

I have read this book with my high school students year after year, and I love it every time. Please understand, dear reader, this is a book of incredibly lyrical prose, and at times it is really more of a narrative poem. In fact, I read it as such with my students. At first they complain: 'I don't get it!' But as time goes on, and I continue to read the short vignettes (and we discuss such things as names, as hair, as beloved grandparents, as the places we've lived), they begin to see the portrait of Esperanza's life being painted for them with words... beautiful words. My favorite chapter is Darius and the Clouds. Just gorgeous writing there....

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros was a very good and well plotted book. It was written by a pretty low educated hispanic girl who has a lot of clear feelings about herself and others. The book starts in Esperanza's childhood and gradually escalates to her teenage/adult years. Now since the main character isn't well educated you can tell by how random the book is. She moves from one topic to the other in a very abrupt random way. You can also tell that she is uneducated by the way she uses her punctuation. She has many sentences where the only thing she says is "Yeah." or "That's right." So as one can see, she doesn't have much of the proper schooling that one should have. Another main point of the story is the poverty she is raised in. She lives in an old brick house that is crumbling down and doesn't function like a normal house should. She grows up in a neighborhood that some people would call ghetto. It is a very poor neighborhood. One in which some are scared of the people that live there. Where the rich upper class people roll up their windows and lock their doors so none of the ghetto kids that has no money to provide the basics steels anything. The last thing is that Esperanza has very low self esteem. She is embarrassed to point out her house. She is also embarrassed about everything about herself and her appearance. So much so she even hates her own hair. So i thought The House on Mango Street had a very good and creative plot. Also that any one of the age 13 and up should read.

This is a beautifully written book about a girls who lives in a house on Mango street, a house that is far below her expectations and a neighborhood she does not want to belong to. This book reads more like a poetic form in a novel. There's a lot of wonderful details about how some people in the neighbor hood live and their cultural nuances. The book captures a moment of a child's life very well.

the novel is written in brief vignettes that read like poetry and combine to create a rich story. i've read it now in english and in spanish, and it is one of my favorite books of all time.