Sandra Cisneros The House On Mango Street

What allows a person to control their future? One of the best answers to this question comes from House on Mango Street, a novella by Sandra Cisneros. In her novella, Cisneros presents the theme that an individual’s future is determined by the individual’s self-confidence and determination to succeed; if a person has these qualities, they will determine their own future, while a person lacking these qualities will let others determine their future for them.

The House on Mango Street Cisneros's Style Sandra Cisneros's writing style in the novel The House on Mango Street transcends two genres, poetry and the short story. The novel is written in a series of poetic vignettes that make it easy to read. These distinguishing attributes are combined to create the backbone of Cisneros's unique style and structure. The novel has confused many critics and readers because it reads like poetry, yet in actuality it is a narrative.

Sometimes in life, people wish for things they do not have. No matter how hard people wish on a star or on a candle, the wishes never seemed to be answered. Everyone has felt that bitter disappointment on Christmas morning when they finally realize that they were never going to be able to get what they wanted. This is the same exact feelings that the characters in Cisneros' The House on Mango Street. Unlike us, the disappointment for these characters last throughout their childhood.

The House on Mango Street “Sire” As the chapter opens, the first impression of Sire is one of a James Dean type of character. Sire and his friends are just sitting on their bikes, pitching pennies, or in other words, gambling. Esperanza tells us that she is scared of them, which makes me wonder why she would be afraid of them? She then says how her dad calls him a “punk.”

Sandra Ciseneros It was a cold and windy day, a perfect day to uncover secrets and truths about writers I had heard of, but new little about. I entered the library to escape the weather and lose myself in books about Sandra Ciseneros and the characters she creates in her poems and stories. I began my search at a computer resource station, and then absorbed myself in the materials it provided, which were biographies, criticisms, and the works of Cisneros. Initially, the computer resource station provided me only with Cisnero's texts or simple the books she had written. They were all listed in the card catalogue, and I was reassured that if the library had her books, than they had to have biographies and criticisms on her as well.

In the book The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, the main character, Esperanza, was affected by many external forces, including family. Esperanza is a young teen who just moved to Mango Street, and she doesn’t like her house because it’s ugly, and she dreams of another house that her family has promised one day. “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window (Cisneros 11). This was in reference to her great grandmother who didn’t want to marry, but Esperanza’s great grandfather kidnapped her and forced her to marry, where Esperanza’s great grandmother never forgave him and looked out a window for the rest of her life. Esperanza didn’t chose her name, her family did, and she didn’t chose who her family is either. The external force of family is an issue in real life just as it is in this novel, and the teens learn to either love it or hate it.

The House on Mango Street The affects of an unreliable narrator in The House on Mango Street is it affects the tone, characterization, and style. There are a lot of examples of those three affects. Some of those examples are on different chapters of The House on Mango Street. Characterization explained in the chapter called “ Earl of Tennessee.”

In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, there is an emphasizes on how rough it is to be part of the low economic class . Through her words you can create an image about the way poverty affects children. She goes through the book making great remarks on the topic. The different experiences that Esperanza goes through have a lot to connect with her family's financial status. She specifically describes her feelings about the poverty they live in through three of her short stories. The three short stories in which poverty seems to be an obstacle are The House on Mango Street, Our Good Day, and Chanclas. When the book begins the downgrading of Esperanza's esteem begins with it.

While writing the book House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros uses unusual language throughout the story to highlight the theme, characters, setting, and conflict. For example, on page eight during the Boys and Girls vignette, Cisneros uses the word we to show the contrast between the girls and the boys that live on Mango Street.

The short story, Geraldo No Last Name, comes from a collection of many stories written in the book The House on Mango Street. The narrative is about a young Puerto Rican woman named Marin. Marin enjoys dancing and tends to go out to different dance halls around the city, one night she meets a young, attractive Mexican man named Geraldo. Although they dance and talk together for hours Marin only learns two things about the young gentleman. One, he worked at the restaurant and two, his name was Geraldo. Later that night, Geraldo dies in a hit and run accident and is brought to a hospital’s emergency room. Being that Marin was the last person with Geraldo and he has no form of identification on his person, Marin has to come to the hospital to