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The House on Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros



Author Biography

Sandra Cisneros is a Mexican-American author. She was born in Chicago in 1954. She was born the third child out of seven, her being the only girl. She was lonely growing up without any sisters but she found comfort reading books. Sandra Cisneros' family moved several time when she was growing up so she never felt like she could get completely settled into her new life. She began to write poetry in high school but enjoyed her creative writing class in college much more.Cisneros spent several years teaching at Latino Youth Alternative High School where she learned about the problems that other teenage Latinos were facing growing up. Along with her own childhood, this is where she got many of her ideas for __The House on Mango Street__.



Plot Synopsis

__The House on Mango Street__ is about a young girl named Esperanza. She is also the narrator of the story. She is growing up physically, mentally, and emotionally throughout the entire story. The reader learns that very early in the book that Esperanza and her family have very little income and have never lived in a proper house. They have only lived in rented apartment buildings that all have been creaky, leaky, and not safe. She is excited to finally live in a house that belongs to just her family. However she builds her expectations up a little too high about the house on mango street. When they arrive, she sees that the house is small and has very little yard space yet she makes the best of it. Throughout the story, Esperanza tells the reader about her neighbors and about the neighborhood itself. __The House on Mango Stree__t is about Esperanza's life on Mango Street.

Literary Information

The House on Mango Street is written in a series of vignettes. Vignettes are a form of poetry that focus on a single moment and give that moment a lot of detail. Sandra Cisneros also writes with Polysyndeton. __The House on Mango Street__ was written in third person but told from Esperanza's own point of view. It is a book of fiction.

Literary Analysis

I think that the theme of __The House on Mango Street__, is that a lot of difficult events happen in everyone's lives but we have to learn from these mistakes and keep on living life. We have to learn from the mistakes that we have made. They will only help us grow stronger as a person. Esperanza learns this from growing up with very little other than the love from her family members but she makes the best out of every situation that she gets.

Criticism

I enjoyed reading __The House on Mango Street__. It was a very different style of writing than I have read previously but I really like it. It was interesting how Sandra Cisneros did not ever use quotation marks in the book. When people spoke, they just spoke with no quotation marks. It was confusing at first but i began to like the simplicity of it after a while. I would rate this book a 4.5 out of 5. If you like stories about people lives you would like this book. If you prefer faster paced books with more action, this would probably not be the best book for you. I did enjoy reading __The House on Mango Street__ however.