The House on Mango Street

1. The House on Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

2. Sandra Cisneros • Born 1954- Still Living! • An American writer best known for her acclaimed first novel The House on Mango Street written in 1984. • Her work experiments with literary forms and investigates different cultral traditions, which Cisneros herself attributes to growing up in a context of cultural hybridity and economic inequality that endowed her with unique stories to tell. • She is regarded as a key figure in Chicana literature. Chicano literature is the literature written by Chicanos or Mexican Americans while living in the United States

3. The novel deals with isolation Cisneros' early life provided many experiences she would later draw on as a writer: she grew up as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which often made her feel isolated.

4. The novel deals with cultural identity The constant migration of her family between Mexico and the USA instilled in her the sense of "always straddling two countries ... but not belonging to either culture."

5. The Chicana Identity Cisneros's work deals with the formation of Chicana identity, exploring the challenges of being caught between Mexican and Anglo-American cultures, facing the sexist attitudes present in both these cultures, and experiencing poverty. Cisneros has achieved recognition far beyond Chicano and Latino communities, to the extent that The House on Mango Street has been translated worldwide and is taught in American classrooms as a coming-of-age novel.

6. A Coming of Age Novel The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age novel. It deals with a young Latina girl, Esperanza Cordero, growing up in the Chicago Chicano ghetto. Esperanza is determined to "say goodbye" to her impoverished Latino neighborhood. Not all readers may be able to identify with Esperanza's world in which everyone in the large family sleeps in one room, men prey on young girls, and husbands and fathers mistreat their children.

7. Esperanza is not Sandra Though this novel was inspired by the author’s life, it is not an autobiographical work. The House on Mango Street is not the story of Sandra Cisneros’ Though her life experiences were similar, (there really was a “house” on Mango Street) Cisneros has often made it very clear that the novel is one of fiction, only inspired by her observations of the people who occupied her neighborhood around the rundown two-story house she lived in as a child that lends it’s name to the novel.

8. How to read the novel: • The novel is narrated by Esperanza, a young Chicana adolescent. • There is no overlaying story, the novel unfolds by way of small vignettes which are short scenes that focus on one moment or give an impression about a character, an idea, or a setting.

9. Recurring Themes • Major themes include: • her quest for a better life • Growing up too soon • Isolation due to culture, gender, and economic status • The importance of family • the importance of her promise to come back for "the ones I left behind."