Plot Overview

About the Author

The Novel The House on Mango Street

written by a woman named Sandra
Cisneros who writes about the life of a 12
year
old
girl
named
Esperanza.Esperanza is a chicana girl
who is growing up and midway through
puberty.She moves into a neighborhood
called Mango street she is disappointed
on the house she moved into and is
nothing compared on how she imagined it
would be even though it's a huge
improvement on the place where she
used to live in.Throughout the novel
esperanza matures not only , Mentaly
and sextually as well.You notice her
maturing mentaly when she gets her fisrt
job and she learns that she has to earn
what she wants.She also matures when
she sees the situations of other women
around her and she comes to aconclution
she doent want to be like them she wants
to be independant you alos notice how
she matures sexually when she gets
sexually asulted various times in the
book.The book shows the matureing of
esperanza and how she makes th

The author of the book The House on

Mango streetdraws on her Latino
heritage.she was born in 1954 During the
1800 women are starting to become more
independant for the first women vice
president was elected in the 1984 which
was the date the book was published.She
wrote the book to the women as it states
in the first pages of the book The House
on Mango streetSandra is the author of
woman hollering creek and other stories
and loose women.Sandra writes stories
about what women had to experience .

Historical Context
During the time period women still
believed that they need to marry
someone in order to be stable.like many
examples of women in the book they had
to marry a man in order to get out of
poverty and that was their only solution
instead of studying and look for a better
future.Their main goal was to look pretty
so that a rich man would come and marry
them.In her heritage women were looked
as objects in displays they couldt get out
of thier homes with out the mans

The House on Mango

Street
Sandra Cisneros
Paola Belmontes
9-18-16

Essential Quotes
I Want to be like the waves of the sea,
Like the clouds in the wind,
But im me
One day i'll jump
Out of my skin
Ill shake the sky
Like a hundred violins
My mother says when I get older my
dusty hair will settle and my blouse will
learn to stay clean,but i have decide not
to grow tame like the others who lay their
necks on the threshold waiting for the ball
and chain

Reflections
The novel The House on Mango Street
demonstrates how the lives of latino
women were at the time and if you work
hard enough and never give up on what

Character Analysis
Esperanza -The main character of the
novel she is 12 years old and her goal in
the story is to discover freedom from her
heritage and poverty.
Sally-Esperanza's Friend.sally is more
sexually alert that Esperanza and is not a
good influence for her.She comes from
an physically abusive father and gets
married in order to escape the abuse.
Marina Puerto rican teenage girl who is
also seeking to escape poverty using
marriage.A girl who also contributes to
Esperanzas sexual awakening
Mama-A role model for esperanza but her
mom doesnt influence her much
because she does believe her mom is
brave and different from the uneducated
women around her but her mother
doesn't seem to be making an effort to
change her life for the better
Alicia-one of the few women who doesnt
try to escape by marriage but by studying
and working hard.

Themes
One major theme of The House on
Mango Streetis to seek
freedom.Esperanza seeks freedom from
her heritage and mango street,for she
wants to escape from poverty and the
tradition of having to marry a man and
obey him like her grandmother.She
describes her grandmother as a fancy
chandelier that her grandfather
kidnapped and didnt let shine to its
fullest.She wants to be independant.
Another major theme of The House on
Mango Street is you should always keep
believing in what you want for
Esperanzas dream was to have her own
home that only belonged to her and that
she achieved with her own effort,for
throughout the story she always had that
hope and at the end she finally achieved
what she wanted her own home.

Motifs and Symbols

A symbol in the novel The House on
Mango Street are the shoes that are
given to Rachel,Nenny and Esperanza by
her neighbor for the shoes are a symbol
of adulthood and femininity.When
Esperanza wheres her shoes around the
neighborhood she gets sexually
assaulted explaining that the shoes mean
that the shoes stand for maturity.
A Motif is that esperanza is responsible
for nanny because she is her older sister
Another symbol is her job because it
demonstrates how she is growing up and
becoming independent for the job means
responsibility and independence