1. The House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros
The House on Mango Street

2. Group Work
Write down collectively where a sense of identity comes from.
The answers can be in bullet points.

3. English 1, Honors Hang on to your urns and keep them on your desk.
We will review notes today.

4. 5th, 6th, and 7th
Please bring your notes out and wait for my instructions.
We will go over Urn projects today.

5. Growing Up in Chicago Born in the Hispanic Quarter of Chicago in 1954.
Mexican-American (Chicana).
She was the only girl in a family of seven and grew up in poverty.
Her parents emphasized education.
Her family moved often; she was shy and introverted, but connected with her community privately through writing.

6. Essential Questions Where does our sense of identity come from?
How does environment shape our identity?
What identities, if any, are permanent and which do we have the power to change?
What roles do neighborhood and community play in shaping who we become?
Stop to write answers on the board/ put up big yellow post-it notes.

7. Becoming a Writer
Attended Loyola University in Chicago as an English major.
Decided to become a writer.
Attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, a graduate school for young writers.
Was afraid her unprivileged background would put her at a disadvantage in the literary world.
However, her heritage gave her the unique voice that shaped her career.

8. The House on Mango Street: Narrator
The work is narrated by Esperanza Cordero, thirteen, a Chicana girl in Chicago.
Although told in the voice of a young girl, it addresses mature subject matter.
In English, Esperanza means hope and also waiting.
This choice of name is significant in the novel: the character and her independence represent a way out of the slums.
As she watches her neighborhood, she decides that she will not become like the women she knows, trapped and powerless in a man’s world.

9. A Deceptive Work
-Language seems simple but it possesses the richness of poetry.
-Slang and breaks from grammatical correctness contribute to immediacy.
-Narrated in a young voice, yet it's convincing because it's the creation of a mature and sophisticated writer.
-Stories come together to tell one complete story.
-Apparent randomness disguises an artful exploration of themes.
A common misconception with The House on Mango Street is that it is concise and readable, so therefore it must be unliterary. Do not be fooled. Cisneros is sending you a message about what it is like for people growing up in a certain world.
Do not note this; allow them to only fill out the sheet.

10. The House on Mango Street: Structure
The novel is told as a series of vignettes, 1-4 pages each
Vignette: a short, descriptive literary sketch
There is no real chronological plot but a series of insights into Esperanza’s thoughts and feelings.
Themes include strength and weakness and the struggle between freedom and bondage.
The novel is dedicated A Las Mujeres, which means “To the Women.”

11. The House on Mango Street: Setting
Mango Street is her inspiration.
In the beginning of the novel, she is disappointed with the house on Mango Street.
She finds that she is not like the other residents of Mango, and that she can and will find the strength to leave her life there.
She realizes that Mango is a part of her, and where she comes from is as important as where she’s going.
She knows she must come back to help the others who are trapped there.
Cisneros’s writing is very imagistic. She makes unexpected comparisons between things to give connotations to what she describes.

12. The House on Mango Street: Characters
Alicia, the medical student who is still bound to her old fears.
Marin, who waits.
Beautiful Rafaela, the modern-day Rapunzel.
Rosa Vargas, with too many children, crying for the husband who left.
Mamacita, who dreams of the pink house she left behind and refuses to speak English.
Sally, the subject of abuse until she marries, to escape, before eighth grade, and moves from Mango Street into into another sort of trap.
And then there is Esperanza, who is like the skinny trees outside her tiny window, who longs for a house all her own, who starts her own quiet war.

13. The House on Mango Street: Significance
This is Cisneros’s first novel.
It is a way to relate her cultural identity to her life and the lives of others.
Cisneros seeks to break the cycle of defeats that women suffered due to social and religious stereotypes.
Esperanza is an outlet for the author’s views on the perceptions of women in her milieu.

14. Further Research
For more biographical information:
For more analysis of The House on Mango Street:
To buy books by Sandra Cisneros:
Teaching resources for Cisneros’s works: