Assignment on the House on Mango Street

Summary of the House on Mango Street

            Sandra Cisneros is the author of The House on Mango Street and this novel was published in 1984. Actually, the novel covers 12 months of the life of a Mexican-American girl, Esperanza. When the novel begins, she is only twelve years old and during a year, she seems to move into a house with her family on the Mango Street. From her previous apartment, the house is quite a major improvement and it is the first home that is owned by her parents. Still, the house is not what had been desired by the girl because it is small and run-down. The house is present in the centre of a Latino neighbourhood where many poor areas are segregated racially. Actually, Esperanza does not have type of privacy and she makes a resolve that someday, she will leave the street and she will have her own house.

            During the year, Esperanza matures a lot in terms of emotions. For instance, as she grows, she makes new friends and develops new perceptions. She also experiences a sexual assault and as a way of escaping the neighbourhood, she begins to write as it is what keeps her occupied and stable. The novel has several other stories of her neighbours as well which serves to show the real picture of the neighbourhood in which she is living. It also shows many paths which could be followed by Esperanza in the future.

            Once she moves to the house, she befriends Rachel and Lucy. They are Chicana girls and they live across the street. Esperanza, her friends, and her sister have several adventures in her neighbourhood. For instance, they purchase a bike and get to learn new stories. Still, as the girls mature, they find themselves to be vulnerable. During the first six months, the girls are quite happy to live and play as children. Meanwhile, at school, Esperanza feels insecure and ashamed about the poverty of her family. Thus, she writes poems and shares them with only a trusted older woman.

            In the summer, the protagonist or Esperanza experiences puberty and she develops new feelings and experiences. She witnesses the death of two family members, which causes her to be close to the adult world. In addition, she begins to watch women in the neighbourhood closely. It can be said that the second half of the story presents stories about other women in the Mango Street. Esperanza determines that these women have their own issues and they are stuck in them. Sally is befriended by Esperanza and she finds that Sally has a lot more sexual experience than her because her father is abusive and she relies on older boys and men to escape from the situation. Esperanza is not comfortable with the experience and view of Sally and it results in a crisis when Esperanza is left alone by Sally in a group of boys who assault her in the absence of Sally.

            In the end, the traumatic experiences of Esperanza as a friend of Sally, together with her observations of other older women in the neighbourhood only strengthen her resolve to escape and leave the Mango Street and buy her own house. However, she gets to realise that she will not be able to leave the Mango Street behind because it has all other women who require her assistance. She cannot just leave them on their own. She believes that she will continue to write as a way of escaping emotionally and in the future, it might help her in leaving physically as well (Bloom, 2010).

References of the House on Mango Street

Bloom, H. (2010). Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Infobase Publishing.