shamed by the nun who says, “You live there? ” to the rape in “Red Clowns,”
Esperanza is threatened emotionally and physically. Students would find it
fruitful to examine what factors, and what intersection of factors, create these
threats to her sense of identity. In other words, what role do race, class, and
gender play in Esperanza’s life, and where and how do those things intersect?
What does Esperanza learn from her examination of the neighborhood and
neighbors around her? The articles by Felicia J. Cruz, Jacqueline Doyle, Robin
Ganz, and Leslie Petty would be helpful to this set of topics.
- Told through a series of forty-four vignettes, The House on Mango Street has been
described as a novel, a novella, and a short-story cycle. Many readers and critics
have commented on the poetic qualities of the prose and the use of “voice” over
character. What is Cisneros doing with traditional notions of genre and divisions
between poetry and prose? What is the impact of her choices on the story she
tells? What aspects of the story do her structural and formal choices highlight?
The articles by Cruz, Julián Olivares, Margot Kelley, and Deborah Madsen
should be of assistance. Students interested in comparative analysis might com-
pare Cisneros’s genre experimentations with those by Tim O’Brien in The Things
They Carried (1989) or Louise Erdrich in Love Medicine (1993).
- By the end of The House on Mango Street Esperanza has determined that her
future is to be a writer, and to write about these lives she has known on Mango
Street. Her final words take the reader back to the beginning of the novel.
Students would find it fruitful to trace Esperanza’s evolving relationship to
storytelling and writing through the text. Which characters encourage her to
write? What do those figures have in common? What other experiences not
directly about writing help shape her identity as a writer? Doyle and Madsen
would be useful for this undertaking.
- In “The Family of Little Feet” and “Hips” a young Esperanza and her friends
explore questions of gender and sexuality, trying on high-heeled shoes and
discovering they have “legs, all our own, good to look at, and long,” wondering
about the function of women’s hips. What other episodes lead to Esperanza’s
growing awareness of sexuality, as well as of gender? Where do gender and
sexuality meet, and where do they diverge? How does her Chicano community
define gender roles and expectations, and how are those expectations enforced?
How do the models of female experience around Esperanza lead to her con-
clusion in “Beautiful & Cruel” that “I have decided not to grow up tame like
the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain”?
Students could consult the articles by Doyle, Petty, Eva Paulino Bueno, and
Ellen McCracken for a variety of views on this question.
- Houses play a significant role in Esperanza’s consciousness. Students would
find it fruitful to consider the many manifestations of houses in Mango Street,
from the literal to the figurative. When and where do houses offer safety?
When and where and why do they not, but rather function as prisons? How
are relationships to houses shaped by gender in this text? More than once
Esperanza is told she will have a “home in the heart”—what does this mean?
Students interested in this exploration should consult McCracken, Olivares,
and Alvina E. Quintana.
Sandra Cisneros 19
