the house of mango street summary

We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back.

The House on Mango Street Is Being Made into a TV Show

"Now is the time to tell our stories," say author Sandra Cisneros.

Widely considered to be a modern classic of Chicana literature, Cisneros's 1984 work tells story of Esperanza⁠—a 12-year-old girl growing up in a largely hispanic neighborhood in Chicago⁠—through a series of vignettes.

“ The House on Mango Street is a timeless story that captures the struggles, dreams, and spirit of a young woman who epitomizes the experience of many young women coming of age in America today," Gene Stein, Gaumont’s president of U.S. Television, told Deadline .

More From Town & Country

"It’s an inspiring and uplifting story that speaks to the challenges faced by so many trying to find their place in society.”

Here's what we know about the adaptation so far.

Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street

While the book was first published in 1983, Cisneros had been hesitant to allow it to be adapted, until now.

Per Deadline , "[Cisneros] changed her mind amid the explosion in streaming services and the ongoing dialogue about immigration in America."

“I write because the world we live in is a house on fire, and the people we love are burning,” she said. “Television has grown up in the last 20 years and now is the time to tell our stories.”

At this point, it's unclear where the show will air.

Netflix has teamed up with Gaumont on several projects in the past, including Narcos and the forthcoming adaptation of Paul McCartney's book High In the Clouds . But at this point, it's unknown if The House on Mango Street will also find a home on the streaming platform.

Other key details like premiere date, filming schedule, and casting information, have also yet to be announced, but we'll be sure to keep you posted.

As the digital director for Town & Country, Caroline Hallemann covers culture, entertainment, and a range of other subjects

@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-agc6a2:before{background-repeat:no-repeat;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);height:1.5rem;margin:0.625rem 0.625rem 0;-webkit-transform:scale(-1, 1);-moz-transform:scale(-1, 1);-ms-transform:scale(-1, 1);transform:scale(-1, 1);width:3.5rem;}.loaded .css-agc6a2:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/townandcountrymag/static/images/diamond-header-design-element.80fb60e.svg);}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-agc6a2:before{margin:0 0.625rem 0.25rem;}} Arts & Culture @media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-1h689t0:before{background-repeat:no-repeat;content:'';display:inline-block;-webkit-filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);filter:invert(17%) sepia(72%) saturate(710%) hue-rotate(181deg) brightness(97%) contrast(97%);height:1.5rem;margin:0.625rem 0.625rem 0;width:3.5rem;}.loaded .css-1h689t0:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/townandcountrymag/static/images/diamond-header-design-element.80fb60e.svg);}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-1h689t0:before{margin:0 0.625rem 0.25rem;}}

DiCaprio & Scorsese to Make True Crime Show

HBO Renewed House of the Dragon for S2

repatriation ceremony, rom, saddle, poundmaker

Is 2023 the Year Looted Art Returns Home?

Matthew Rhys on Perry Marson's "Crisis of Faith"

Perry Mason Season 2 Episode Guide

Elvis Tribute in 'Daisy Jones & the Six'

Michelle Yeoh's Best Red Carpet Looks

Is Daisy Jones & The Six Based on a True Story?

'Daisy Jones & the Six' Character Guide

How to Watch Daisy Jones & the Six

Best Books Spring 2023

Suggestions

Please wait while we process your payment

Reset Password

Your password reset email should arrive shortly..

If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.

Something went wrong

By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy .

Don’t have an account? Subscribe now

Create Your Account

Already have an account? Log in

Choose Your Plan

$4.99 /month + tax

$24.99 /year + tax

Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!

Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?

Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!

$24.99 $18.74 / subscription + tax

Subtotal $37.48 + tax

Save 25% on 2-49 accounts

Save 30% on 50-99 accounts

Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.

You'll be billed after your free trial ends.

7-Day Free Trial

Not Applicable

Renews March 14, 2023 March 7, 2023

Discounts (applied to next billing)

SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount

This is not a valid promo code.

Discount Code (one code per order)

SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at [email protected] . Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.

For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!

You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.

Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.

Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.

Your PLUS subscription has expired

The House on Mango Street

Sandra cisneros.

The House on Mango Street is a novel by Sandra Cisneros that was first published in 1984 .

Read one-minute Sparklet summaries, the detailed section-by-section Summary & Analysis, or the Full Book Summary of The House on Mango Street .

Sparklet Chapter Summaries

Summary & Analysis

See a complete list of the characters in The House on Mango Street and in-depth analyses of Esperanza , Sally , and Nenny.

Character List

Literary Devices

Here's where you will find analysis of the key themes, motifs, and symbols in The House on Mango Street .

Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of the book by reading these key quotes from The House on Mango Street .

By Character

Quick quizzes.

Test your knowledge of The House on Mango Street with quizzes about every section, major characters, and more.

Learn more about The House on Mango Street by reading these mini-essays and suggested essay topics.

Further Study

Go further in your study of The House on Mango Street by reading background information about Sandra Cisneros and the novel as well as suggestions for further reading.

The House on Mango Street (SparkNotes Literature Guide)

View all Available Study Guides

Take a Study Break

QUIZ: Is This a Taylor Swift Lyric or a Quote by Edgar Allan Poe?

The 7 Most Embarrassing Proposals in Literature

The 6 Best and Worst TV Show Adaptations of Books

QUIZ: Which Greek God Are You?

We're sorry, this computer has been flagged for suspicious activity.

If you are a member, we ask that you confirm your identity by entering in your email.

You will then be sent a link via email to verify your account.

If you are not a member or are having any other problems, please contact customer support.

Thank you for your cooperation

JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser.

The House on Mango Street Summary

Advertisement - Guide continues below

Esperanza is a little girl who moves with her family to a house on Mango Street. It's a small, crumbling red house in a poor urban neighborhood – not at all what Esperanza had been hoping for when her parents promised to move the family to a house. Esperanza, who's often followed by her younger sister Nenny, meets the other residents of Mango Street and describes their often difficult lives in a series of vignettes, or short sketches. Most of the neighborhood's residents are Hispanic, including Esperanza, whose father is a Mexican immigrant and whose mother is Latina. (By the way, check out Sandra Cisneros's opinion on the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino" under "Trivia.") The beginning of this book introduces us to a collection of characters and explores their cultural backgrounds and how they are affected by poverty, exile, and the restrictions of prescribed gender roles. Esperanza is ashamed of her family's poverty, and describes several instances in which she lies, or tries to hide the fact that she is poor, by saying she lives in a different house, or hiding her unattractive shoes under the table at a party. Puberty also provokes some feelings of shame for Esperanza, whose experience of adolescence is made even more painful than usual by two instances of sexual aggression – one in which an old man at work forces her to kiss him, and one in which some boys at a carnival rape her. Some of Esperanza's friends also suffer significant hardship: Alicia, whose mother is dead, is forced by her father to rise early every morning to make tortillas for her family; Sally, a beautiful girl at school, endures regular beatings by her father; Minerva, a teenaged mother of two, is constantly being abandoned or beaten by her husband. Esperanza's mother encourages her not to let men hold her back, and not to "lay her [her neck] on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain" of marriage (35.3). Witnessing the fate of her female schoolmates who marry young to escape the abuse of their fathers, only to suffer at the hands of their new husbands, Esperanza resolves to leave Mango Street with her books and her papers. She dreams of having a house all her own, where she can write. An encounter with three spiritual sisters at a neighborhood wake suggests that she will be successful in escaping the neighborhood, but that she will never be able to deny her past. The three sisters convince Esperanza that, when she leaves, she must come back for those who cannot leave as easily, and work to make Mango Street a better place.

This is a premium product

Tired of ads?

Join today and never see them again.

Please Wait...

Find Study Materials for

Create Study Materials

Select your language

The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros

Lerne mit deinen Freunden und bleibe auf dem richtigen Kurs mit deinen persönlichen Lernstatistiken

Nie wieder prokastinieren mit unseren Lernerinnerungen.

The House on Mango Street was written by Chicana author Sandra Cisneros and published in 1984. The novel became an instant classic of Chicano fiction and is still taught in schools and universities across the country.

The novel is written in a series of vignettes or loosely connected short stories and sketches narrated by Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl of approximately twelve who lives in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago.

Esperanza's vignettes explore her own life over a year as she matures and enters puberty, as well as the lives of her friends and neighbors. She paints a picture of a neighborhood marred by poverty and filled with women whose opportunities are limited to those of wife and mother. Young Esperanza dreams of a way out, of a life of writing in a home of her very own.

Chicano literature began along with Chicano culture following the Mexican-American War in the mid-19th century. In 1848, Mexico and the United States signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hildago, giving the United States ownership of a large portion of what was formerly Mexico, including present-day California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, and more.

The Mexican people residing in these areas became US citizens and began to create a culture that was distinct from both Mexican and American cultures. In the 1960s and 70s, young Mexican-American activists began to reclaim the term Chicano, which was often considered derogatory. This period also coincided with a rise in Chicano literary production.

Sandra Cisneros is a key figure in the Chicano literary movement. Her book of short stories, Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991), made her the first Chicana author to be represented by a major publishing house. Other important Chicano authors include Luis Alberto Urrea, Helena María Viramontes, and Tomas Rivera.

The House on Mango Street : A Summary

The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl on the cusp of adolescence. Esperanza lives in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago with her parents and three siblings. The novel takes place over the course of a year as Esperanza begins puberty.

Throughout her childhood, Esperanza's family has always moved from place to place while her parents repeatedly promised the family would one day have a home of their own. The house on Mango Street is just that, the first home the Cordero family actually owns. However, it is old, rundown, and overcrowded by Esperanza's family. It doesn't meet the girl's expectations, and she continues dreaming of having a "real" (Chapter One) house.

The House on Mango Street, shabby red bricks, StudySmarter

Upon moving in, Esperanza befriends two neighboring girls, sisters Lucy and Rachel. The three girls, and Esperanza's little sister, Nenny, spend the first half of the year exploring the neighborhood, having adventures, and meeting the other residents. They ride bicycles, explore a junk store, and also begin experimenting with makeup and high heels.

Esperanza's vignettes introduce the reader to the colorful cast of characters on Mango Street, individuals struggling with the effects of poverty, racism, and oppressive gender roles.

The vignettes particularly explore the lives of the women in the neighborhood, many of whom suffer in relationships with abusive husbands or fathers. They are often confined to their houses and must focus all their energy on caring for their families.

Esperanza knows that this is not the life she wants for herself, but she also begins enjoying male attention as she enters puberty. When the new school year begins, she makes friends with another girl, Sally, who is more sexually mature than Esperanza or her other friends. Sally's father is abusive, and she uses her beauty and relationships with other men to escape him.

Esperanza is sometimes intimidated by Sally's experience and maturity. Their friendship ends in tragedy when her friend leaves her alone at a carnival and a group of men rapes Esperanza.

After this trauma, Esperanza resolves to escape Mango Street and have a house of her own one day. She does not want to be trapped like the other women she sees around her, and she believes that writing can be a way out. However, Esperanza also comes to understand that Mango Street will always be a part of her. She meets the elder sisters of Rachel and Lucy, who tell her that she will leave Mango Street but make her promise to return later to help the women remaining there.

While The House on Mango Street is a work of fiction, it was inspired by the author's own childhood, and some autobiographical elements are in the novel. Like Esperanza, author Sandra Cisneros grew up in a working-class Chicago neighborhood with a Mexican father and Latina mother, dreaming of her own home and a career in writing. As a young girl, Cisneros also saw writing as a way to break out of traditional gender roles that she found oppressive and forage her own identity.

Characters from The House on Mango Street

Esperanza means "hope" in Spanish.

The House on Mango Street : Key Themes

The House on Mango Street explores many interesting themes, including coming of age, gender roles, and identity and belonging.

Coming of Age

The House on Mango Street is Esperanza's coming-of-age story.

Everything is holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt. -Chapter Twenty-eight

Over the course of the novel, she enters puberty, moving from childhood into life as a young adult. She matures physically, sexually, mentally, and emotionally. Esperanza and her friends begin experimenting with makeup and high-heels; they develop crushes on boys and receive advice from older women.

Esperanza also experiences trauma that forces her into maturity. She is forcibly kissed by an older man at her first job, and she is raped by a group of men when her friend Sally leaves her alone at a carnival.

Gender Roles

Esperanza's observation that boys and girls live in different worlds is exemplified time and time again in The House on Mango Street .

The boys and girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They've got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can't be seen talking to girls. -Chapter Three

Throughout the novel, men and women are often literally in different worlds, the women confined to the world of the home and the men living in the world outside. Nearly all of the characters in the novel conform to traditional gender roles. Women are expected to stay at home, care for their families, and obey their husbands. Men often use violence to ensure their wives and daughters' compliance.

As Esperanza grows and matures throughout the novel, she sees the limits of these gender roles more clearly. She knows she wants to be more than someone's wife or mother, which urges her to look for a life outside of Mango Street.

Identity and Belonging

Throughout The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is looking for the place where she belongs.

I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. -Chapter Four

She feels out of place everywhere, in her family, neighborhood, and school; even her name doesn't seem to suit her. Esperanza wants a different life from those she sees around her, but she has no model for what that might be. She is left to make her own way and construct her own identity.

Symbols in The House on Mango Street

Some key symbols in The House on Mango Street are houses, windows, and shoes.

In The House on Mango Street , houses are an important symbol of Esperanza's life and aspirations.

You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded. -Chapter One

The family's Mango Street home embodies everything Esperanza wishes were different about her life. It is "sad and red and crumbly in places" (Chapter Five) and a far cry from the "real house" (Chapter One) that Esperanza imagines living in one day.

For Esperanza, a real house symbolizes belonging, a place she can call her own with pride.

Traditionally, the home is seen as the woman's place, the domestic domain where she cares for her family. How does Esperanza subvert traditional gender roles in her desire for a home of her own?

Windows repeatedly symbolize the trapped nature of the women in The House on Mango Street .

She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. -Chapter Four

In the above quote, Esperanza describes her great-grandmother, a woman who was reportedly forced into marrying her husband when he "threw a sack over her head and carried her off" (Chapter Four). There are many women in The House on Mango Street for who the window is their only view of the outside world as they live trapped in the domestic world of their home.

The House on Mango Street, a window, StudySmarter

The image of shoes repeatedly appears in The House on Mango Street and is particularly related to feminity, maturity, and Esperanza's budding sexuality.

I looked at my feet in their white socks and ugly round shoes. They seemed far away. They didn't seem to be my feet anymore. -Chapter Thirty-eight

The shoes that various women wear, be they sturdy, elegant, dirty, or so on, speak to the characters' personalities. Shoes are also an important symbol of maturity. In one vignette, Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel acquire three pairs of high-heels and walk up and down the street in them. They are harassed by some men and take their shoes off when they become "tired of being beautiful" (Chapter Seventeen). Removing the shoes allows them to return to childhood for a bit longer.

The House on Mango Street, red shoes, StudySmarter

The House on Mango Street : An Analysis of the Novel's Structure and Style

The House on Mango Street is a structurally and stylistically interesting novel. It is composed of forty-four vignettes ranging in length from just a paragraph or two to a couple of pages. Some of the vignettes have a clear narrative, while others read almost like poetry.

A vignette is a short piece of writing that focuses on specific details or a certain period of time. A vignette does not tell a whole story by itself. A story might be made up of a collection of vignettes, or an author might use a vignette to explore a theme or idea more closely.

In her introduction to the 25th-anniversary edition of The House on Mango Street, Cisneros describes wanting to write a book that ignored the normal boundaries of literature, something that blurred the lines between poetry and prose and defied genre.

She also imagined the book as something anyone could read, including working-class people like those she grew up with, and those that populate the novel. With the novel's structure, each vignette can be enjoyed independently; the reader could open the book at random and start reading wherever they would like.

The House on Mango Street - Key takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions about The House on Mango Street

--> what is the house on mango street about.

The House on Mango Street is about Esperanza Cordero's experiences growing up in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago.

--> How does Esperanza grow in The House on Mango Street ?

Over the course of The House on Mango Street, Esperanza grows physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually. She begins the novel as a child, and, by the end, she has entered puberty and started to become a young woman.

--> What is the theme of The House on Mango Street ?

There are many important themes in The House on Mango Street, including coming of age, gender roles, and identity and belonging.

--> What type of genre is The House on Mango Street ?

The House on Mango Street is a coming-of-age novel, showing the protagonist moving out of childhood.

--> Who wrote The House on Mango Street ?

Chicana author Sandra Cisneros wrote The House on Mango Street.

Final The House on Mango Street Quiz

Who wrote The House on Mango Street?

Show answer

Show question

What span of time does The House on Mango Street cover?

Approximately one year

Who is the protagonist of The House on Mango Street?

What are the short chapters that make up The House on Mango Street called?

Who did Sandra Cisneros see as the audience for The House on Mango Street ?

Everyone, including working-class people like the characters in the book.

Which is NOT a key symbol in The House on Mango Street ?

Which is NOT a key theme in The House on Mango Street ?

Home construction

In which city does The House on Mango Street take place?

True or false? The House on Mango Street was inspired by Sandra Cisneros' own childhood and contains some autobiographical elements.

What do windows symbolize in The House on Mango Street?

Windows symbolize the trapped nature of the women in The House on Mango Street .

How many siblings does Esperanza have?

What trauma does Esperanza experience at the end of The House on Mango Street ?

She is raped by a group of men

When was The House on Mango Street published?

How does Esperanza feel about the Mango Street house?

The house doesn't meet Esperanza's expectations, and she continues dreaming of having a "real" house.

What role are women expected to play in The House on Mango Street ?

Women are expected to stay at home, care for their families, and obey their husbands.

of the users don't pass the The House on Mango Street quiz! Will you pass the quiz?

More explanations about American Literature

Discover the right content for your subjects, business studies, combined science, environmental science, human geography, macroeconomics, microeconomics, no need to cheat if you have everything you need to succeed packed into one app.

Be perfectly prepared on time with an individual plan.

Test your knowledge with gamified quizzes.

Create and find flashcards in record time.

Create beautiful notes faster than ever before.

Have all your study materials in one place.

Upload unlimited documents and save them online.

Study Analytics

Identify your study strength and weaknesses.

Weekly Goals

Set individual study goals and earn points reaching them.

Smart Reminders

Stop procrastinating with our study reminders.

Earn points, unlock badges and level up while studying.

Magic Marker

Create flashcards in notes completely automatically.

Smart Formatting

Create the most beautiful study materials using our templates.

Join millions of people in learning anywhere, anytime - every day

This is still free to read, it's not a paywall.

You need to register to keep reading, get free access to all of our study material, tailor-made.

Over 10 million students from across the world are already learning smarter.

StudySmarter bietet alles, was du für deinen Lernerfolg brauchst - in einer App!

Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street

Esperanza Cordero and her parents, sister, and brothers move into a house on Mango Street, after having lived in numerous other locations in Chicago, only some of which Esperanza remembers. At least this latest house is the Corderos' own, but in other respects, it is not the house Esperanza would have hoped for. Esperanza meets some of her neighbors — Cathy (whose family is about to move out because the neighborhood is going downhill), Lucy and Rachel (two sisters who live across the street), a boy named Tito, another named Meme Ortiz (whose family has moved into Cathy's house), yet another boy named Louie, Louie's cousin Marin, and Louie's other cousin.

Esperanza gets to know Marin a little better and learns that she is hoping to marry a boy in Puerto Rico but that she is still interested in other boys. Esperanza reflects that people who don't live in the neighborhood are afraid to come into it, whereas those who live there feel quite safe but are afraid to go into other neighborhoods. She tells about the Vargas kids, whose father left and whose mother can't control them, and about Alicia, who is going to the university and at the same time keeping house for her father. Esperanza and her friends hang out, looking at clouds, talking idly. A woman gives Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel three pairs of high-heeled shoes, which they wear around the neighborhood.

Esperanza pleads with her mother to let her take her lunch to school, but when she is allowed to do so, she doesn't enjoy it. She goes to a baptismal party for a baby cousin and dances with her uncle. She, Nenny, Lucy, and Rachel talk about getting hips, and Esperanza gets her first job, in a photo-developing store. Her grandfather dies in Mexico, her Aunt Lupe dies in Chicago, and Esperanza goes to a fortune-teller who informs her that she will have a home in the heart. At a dance, her friend Marin meets a man who is later injured in a hit-and-run accident; Marin waits in the hospital while he dies. Esperanza describes two neighborhood adults whom she finds interesting: Edna's daughter Ruthie and a jukebox repairman named Earl. She tells about a boy — Sire — who sometimes stares at her, and talks about her relationship to four trees growing from the sidewalk in front of her house.

Then Esperanza describes two married women she knows — Mamacita , who is very fat, very homesick, and cannot speak English, and Rafaela, who is young and beautiful, and whose husband locks her in their apartment while he goes out to play dominoes with his friends. Sally, who is about Esperanza's age, makes herself attractive to boys and young men but is mistreated by her father, who is afraid she will run away with some boy or young man. And Minerva (who also writes poems), not much older than Esperanza, has two little children and a husband who leaves her sometimes but then comes back and beats her.

When she has a house, Esperanza says, it will be a big, fine one, and she will let "bums" stay upstairs in the attic. She has decided to be independent, like a man. Her mother tells her that she herself quit school because she was ashamed of her clothes.

Sally's father beats her so badly that her mother allows her to come and stay with Esperanza's family, but he comes to get her, begs her to come home with him, and then beats her worse. Esperanza and Sally go to play in an overgrown and deserted garden, but Sally would rather hang out with the boys, and Esperanza embarrasses herself by trying to protect Sally, who doesn't want to be protected. The two girls go to a carnival, and Sally leaves with a boy; Esperanza, waiting for her to return, is overpowered by several strangers and sexually assaulted by one of them.

Now Sally has married a young man she met at a school function, and he makes her stay in their house and won't let her friends visit. Lucy and Rachel's youngest sister, an infant, dies; at their house, Esperanza meets her friends' three aunts (or, most likely, great aunts), who draw her aside and tell her she is special. When she leaves Mango Street, they say, she must not neglect to come back for those who can't leave. Her friend Alicia echoes this advice when they talk on Edna's steps. And, at last, Esperanza says that she will have a house of her own, she will someday leave Mango Street — and, sometimes, writing about it helps her make it leave her — but she will come back for the others.

"Woman Hollering Creek" and Other Stories

Twenty-two short pieces, all self-contained, variously set in Texas, Chicago, and Mexico, mostly from the 1960s to the late 1980s (with one exception, "Eyes of Zapata," which takes place in the early years of the twentieth century) comprise "Woman Hollering Creek" and Other Stories. Characters narrate all but three or four of the stories, and these voices vary from that of a five-or- six-year-old girl to that of an elderly man. Several of the pieces are only a page or two long; the two longest, "Eyes of Zapata" and " Bien Pretty," are each about 29 pages. Most of the stories are non-traditional in structure, following a non-linear shape in which the narrator "circles" around her or his topic, examining it from various angles and in various times. Those that do follow a conventionally linear pattern tend to flatten that pattern ironically. All of the pieces are serious; many are very funny, too.

Next About Cisneros' Work

has been added to your

Reading List!

Removing #book# from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title.

Are you sure you want to remove #bookConfirmation# and any corresponding bookmarks?

IMAGES

Sandra Cisneros
The House on Mango Street.doc
The House On Mango Street: Summary & Analysis
The House on Mango Street Settings Storyboard by beckyharvey
The House on Mango Street Study Guide
House on Mango Street

VIDEO

इन्वेस्टिंग से अमीर इसीलिए बनते हैं
The House on Mango Street (Outline & Summary) by Sandra Cisneros
Cover Discussion
The House on Mango Street Chapters 36
Is The Best Pikachu Back?!
The House on Mango Street Ch.1-4

COMMENTS

How Can You Find House Numbers on a Specific Street?
SearchBug.com offers a simple tool to look up street numbers in a given ZIP code. Enter the ZIP code for the area you want to research, and search through a list of all unique street numbers in that ZIP code
What Is a Summary of “Upon the Burning of Our House”?
“Upon the Burning of Our House” is a poem by Anne Bradstreet that describes her reaction to waking up in the middle of the night and fleeing her house because it was burning down, explains PuritanSermons.com.
The House on Mango Street TV Show News, Cast, Premiere Date
Sandra Cisneros's iconic coming-of-age novel The House on Mango Street is being adapted for the small screen by Gaumont, the production company behind the hit Netflix series Narcos. Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country e...
Full Book Summary
In a series of vignettes, The House on Mango Street covers a year in the life of Esperanza, a Chicana (Mexican-American girl), who is about
The House on Mango Street: Study Guide
The House on Mango Street is a novel by Sandra Cisneros that was first published in 1984. Summary. Read one-minute Sparklet summaries, the detailed section-by-
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Set in Humboldt Park, "The House on Mango Street" is a coming-of-age story that shares one year in the life of Esperanza Cordero, a young
The House on Mango Street Summary
Esperanza is a little girl who moves with her family to a house on Mango Street. It's a small, crumbling red house in a poor urban neighborhood – not at all
The House on Mango Street
The House on Mango Street is a 1984 novel by Mexican-American author Sandra Cisneros. Structured as a series of vignettes, it tells the story of Esperanza
The House on Mango Street Summary
The House on Mango Street is a bildungsroman (coming-of-age story) of a young Chicana (Mexican-American) girl named Esperanza Cordero.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street explained with chapter summaries in just a few minutes! Course Hero Literature Instructor
The House on Mango Street Summary and Study Guide
Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street is an internationally acclaimed novel, first published in 1984. The story of Esperanza Cordero is told through
The House on Mango Street: Summary & Themes
The House on Mango Street tells the story of Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl on the cusp of adolescence. Esperanza lives in a Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago
The House on Mango Street: CHAPTER SUMMARIES WITH NOTES
Esperanza describes the boys and girls as living "in separate worlds"--her brothers, Carlos and Kiki, refuse to be seen talking to their sisters outside the
The House on Mango Street & Woman Hollering Creek & Other Stories
Esperanza Cordero and her parents, sister, and brothers move into a house on Mango Street, after having lived in numerous other locations in Chicago, only some