American Literature: OTHERS: The house on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Postcolonislism: Definitions and Characteristics

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OTHERS: The house on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Postcolonislism: Definitions and Characteristics

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The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street, which appeared in 1983, is a linked collection of forty-four short tales that evoke the circumstances and conditions of a Hispanic American ghetto in Chicago. The narrative is seen through the eyes of Esperanza Cordero, an adolescent girl coming of age. These concise and poetic tales also offer snapshots of the roles of women in this society. They uncover the dual forces that pull Esperanza to stay rooted in her cultural traditions on the one hand, and those that compel her to pursue a better way of life outside the barrio on the other. Throughout the book Sandra Cisneros explores themes of cultural tradition, gender roles, and coming of age in a binary society that struggles to hang onto its collective past while integrating itself into the American cultural landscape.

Cisneros wrote the vignettes while struggling with her identity as an author at the University of Iowa's Writers Workshop in the 1970s. She was influenced by Russian-bom novelist and poet Vladimir Nabokov's memoirs and by her own experiences as a child in the Chicago barrio. This engaging book has brought the author critical acclaim and a 1985 Before Columbus American Book Award. Specifically, it has been highly lauded for its impressionistic, poetic style and powerful imagery.

Though Cisneros is a young writer and her work is not plentiful, The House on Mango Street establishes her as a major figure in American literature. Her work has already been the subject of numerous scholarly studies and is often at the fore- front of works that explore the role of Latinas in American society.

Author biography

The experiences of Esperanza, the adolescent protagonist of The House on Mango Street, closely resemble those of Sandra Cisneros's childhood. The author was born to a Mexican father and a Mexican American mother in 1954 in Chicago, Illinois, the only daughter of seven children. The family, for whom money was always in short supply, frequently moved between the ghetto neighborhoods of Chicago and the areas of Mexico where her father's family lived. Cisneros remembers that as a child she often felt a sense of displacement.

By 1966 her parents had saved enough money for a down payment on a run-down, two-story house in a decrepit Puerto Rican neighborhood on Chicago's north side. There Cisneros spent much of her childhood. This house, as well as the colorful group of characters Cisneros observed around her in the barrio, served as inspiration for some of the stories in The House on Mango Street. The author once remarked, "Because we moved so much, and always in neighborhoods that appeared like France after World War II-empty lots and burned-out buildings-I retreated inside myself." Cisneros was an introspective child with few friends; her mother encouraged her to read and write at a young age, and made sure her daughter had her own library card. The author wrote poems and stories as a schoolgirl, but the impetus for her career as a creative writer came during her college years, when she was introduced to the works of Donald Justice, James Wright, and other writers who made Cisneros more aware of her cultural roots.

Cisneros graduated from Loyola University in 1976 with a B.A. in English. She began to pursue graduate studies in writing at the University of Iowa, and earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing in 1978. Cisneros says that through high school and college, she did not perceive herself as being different from her fellow English majors. She spoke Spanish only at home with her father, but otherwise wrote and studied within the mainstream of American literature. At the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, Cisneros found her true voice as an author. Compared with her more privileged, wealthier classmates from more stable environments, Cisneros's cultural difference as a Chicana became clear. Though at first she imitated the style and tone of acclaimed American authors, Cisneros came to realize that her experience as a Hispanic woman differed from that of her classmates and offered an opportunity to develop her own voice. Cisneros once remarked, "Everyone seemed to have some communal knowledge which I did not have-My classmates were from the best schools in the country. They had been bred as fine hothouse flowers. I was a yellow weed among the city's cracks." The author began to explore her past experiences, which served as the inspiration of many of her stories and distinguished her from her peers. Her master's thesis, My Wicked Wicked Ways (Iowa, 1978, published as a book in 1987) is a collection of poems that begins to explore daily experiences, encounters, and observations in this new-found voice.

Cisneros has held several fellowships that have allowed her to focus on her writing full-time. These awards have enabled her to travel to Europe and to other parts of the United States, including a stint in Austin, Texas, where she experienced another thriving community of Latin American culture. She has also taught creative writing and worked with students at the Latino Youth Altemative High School in Chicago.

The House on Mango Street is the coming of age story of Esperanza Cordero, a preadolescent Mexican American girl (Chicana) living in the contemporary United States. A marked departure from the traditional novel form, The House on Mango Street is a slim book consisting of forty-four vignettes, or literary sketches, narrated by Esperanza and ranging in length from two paragraphs to four pages. In deceptively simple language, the novel recounts the complex experience of being young, poor, female, and Chicana in America. The novel opens with a description of the Cordero family's house on Mango Street, the most recent in a long line of houses they have occupied. Esperanza is dissatisfied with the house, which is small and cramped, and doesn't want to stay there. But Mango Street is her home now, and she sets out to try to understand it.

Mango Street is populated by people with many different life stories, stories of hope and despair. First there is Esperanza's own family: her kind father who works two jobs and is absent most of the time; her mother, who can speak two languages and sing opera but never finished high school; her two brothers Carlos and Kiki; and her little sister Nenny. Of the neighborhood children Esperanza meets, there is Cathy, who shows her around Mango Street but moves out shortly thereafter because the neighborhood is "getting bad." Then there are Rachel and Lucy, sisters from Texas, who become Esperanza and Nenny's best friends. There is Meme, who has a dog with two names, one in Spanish and one in English, and Louie the boy from Puerto Rico whose cousin steals a Cadillac one day and gives all the children a ride.

Then there are the teenage girls of Mango Street, whom Esperanza studies carefully for clues about becoming a woman. There is Marin from Puerto Rico, who sells Avon cosmetics and takes care of her younger cousins, but is waiting for a boyfriend to change her life. There is Alicia, who must take care of her father and siblings because her mother is dead, but is determined to keep going to college. And there is Esperanza's beautiful friend Sally, who marries in the eighth grade in order to get away from her father but is now forbidden by her husband to see her friends. Esperanza, Nenny, Lucy, and Rachel discover that acting sexy is more dangerous than liberating when a neighbor gives them four pairs of hand-me-down high heels. They strut around the neighborhood acting like the older girls until a homeless man accosts them. After fleeing, the girls quickly take off the shoes with the intention of never wearing them again.

The grown women Esperanza comes across on Mango Street are less daring and hopeful than the teenage girls, but they have acquired the wisdom that comes with experience. They advise Esperanza not to give up her independence in order to become a girlfriend or wife. Her Aunt Lupe, who was once pretty and strong but is now dying, encourages Esperanza to write poetry. Her mother, who was once a good student, a "smart cookie," regrets having dropped out of school. There are other women in the neighborhood who don't fit into either category, like Edna's Ruthie, a grownup who "likes to play." While the text implies that Ruthie is developmentally disabled, Esperanza perceives her as somebody who "sees lovely things everywhere."

Through observing and interacting with her neighbors, Esperanza forms a connection to MangoStreet which conflicts with her desire to leave. At the funeral for Rachel and Lucy's baby sister she meets their three old aunts who read her palm and her mind:
Esperanza. The one with marble hands called me aside. Esperanza. She held my face with her blueveined hands and looked and looked at me. A long silence. When you leave you must remember always to come back, she said.
What?
When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can't erase what you know. You can't forget who you are.

Then I didn't know what to say. It was as if she could read my mind, as if she knew what I had wished for, and I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish.

You must remember to come back. For the ones who cannot leave as easily as you. You will remember? She asked as if she was telling me. Yes, yes, I said a little confused.

The three sisters tell Esperanza that while she will go far in life she must remember to come back to Mango Street for the others who do not get as far. By the novel's end Esperanza has realized that her writing is one way to maintain the connection to Mango Street without having to give up her own independence. She will tell the stories of the "ones who cannot out."

Characters

Alicia

"Alicia Who Sees Mice" is a young woman burdened by taking care of her family while attending college in order to escape her way of life in the barrio. She is only afraid of mice, which serve as a metaphor for her poverty.

Cathy

Cathy, "Queen of Cats," as Esperanza calls her because of her motley collection of felines, is one of Esperanza's neighborhood playmates. Cathy tells Esperanza that she and her family are leaving because the neighborhood into which Esperanza has just moved is going downhill.

Carlos Cordero

Carlos is Esperanza's younger brother. The brothers have little interaction with Esperanza and Nenny outside of the structure of the household.

Esperanza Cordero

"In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters," says Esperanza Cordero. In a child-like voice, Esperanza records impressions of the world around her. Her perceptions range from humorous anecdotes pulled from life in the barrio to more dark references to crime and sexual provocation. Through Esperanza's eyes, the reader catches short yet vivid glimpses of the other characters,

particularly the females in Esperanza's neighborhood. In part, Esperanza finds her sense of self-identity among these women. With a sense of awe and mystery, for example, she looks to older girls who wear black clothes and makeup. She experiments with womanhood herself in "The Family of Little Feet," a story in which Esperanza and her friends cavort about the neighborhood in high heel shoes, but are forced to flee when they attract unwanted male attention. Esperanza's sense of selfidentity is also interwoven with her family's house, which emerges throughout the book as an important metaphor for her circumstances. She longs for her own house, which serves as a symbol of the stability, financial means, and sense of belonging that

she lacks in her environment: "a house all my own-Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem."

As the stories develop, Esperanza matures. She tums from looking outward at her world to a more introspective viewpoint that reveals several sides of her character. Esperanza is a courageous girl who recognizes the existence of a bigger world beyond

her constraining neighborhood, and who, toward the end of the book, is compelled by her own inner strength to leave the barrio. Nonetheless, Esperanza demonstrates empathy for those around her, particularly those who do not see beyond the confines of

their situations: "One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever.

One day I will go away. Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all these books and paper? Why did she march so far away? They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out." In "Bums in the Attic," Esperanza says, "One day I'll own my own house, but I won't forget who or where I came from." The tension between Esperanza's emotional ties to this community and her desire to transcend it establish a sense of attraction and repulsion that characterize the work.

Kiki Cordero

Kiki, "with hair like fur," is Esperanza's younger brother.

Magdalena Cordero

"Nenny" is Esperanza's younger sister. Esperanza sees her little sister as childish and unable to understand the world as she does: "Nenny is too young to be my friend. She's just my sister and that was not my fault. You don't pick your sisters, you just get them and sometimes they come like Nenny." However, because the two girls have brothers, Esperanza understands that Nenny is her own responsibility to guide and protect. Esperanza and Nenny share common bonds both as sisters and as Chicana females. In the story "Laughter," a certain neighborhood house reminds both sisters of

Mexico, a connection possible only because of their shared experience: "Nenny says: Yes, that's Mexico all right. That's what I was thinking exactly."

Mama Cordero

Esperanza's mother is typical of the women in Latin American communities whose life is defined by marriage, family, children, and traditionally female activities. Mama reveals herself as a superstitious figure who tells Esperanza that she was bom on an evil day and that she will pray for her. Mama operates as a caretaker and has authority over her household, and she is portrayed as a martyr, sacrificing her own needs for those of her family. "I could've been somebody, you know?" Mama proclaims to Esperanza, explaining that she left school because she was ashamed that she didn't have nice clothes. Mama wishes for her daughters a better life outside the cycle of subjugation that characterizes her own, and she views education as the ticket out of that way of life.

Nenny Cordero (See Magdalena Cordero)

Papa Cordero

Esperanza's father is portrayed as a man burdened with the obligation of providing for his family. Papa holds up a lottery ticket hopefully as he describes to the family the house they will buy one day. In the story "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark," Papa reveals his vulnerability to Esperanza, his eldest child, when he learns of his own father's death and asks her to convey the news to her siblings while he returns to Mexico for the funeral.

Earl

This man with a southern accent, a jukebox repairman according to Esperanza, appears in the story "The Earl of Tennessee." He occupies a dark basement apartment and brings home women of ill repute whom Esperanza and her friends naively take to be his wife.

Elenita

Elenita, "witch woman" who tells fortunes with the help of Christian icons, tarot cards, and other accouterments, tells Esperanza after Reading her cards that she sees a "home in the heart. This leaves Esperanza disappointed that a "real house" does not appear in her future.

Louie

The oldest in a family of girls, Louie and his family rent a basement apartment from Meme Ortiz's mother. His cousin Marin lives with the family and helps take care of his younger sisters. Although Louie is really her brother's friend, Esperanza notices that he "has two cousins and that his t-shirts never stay tucked in his pants."

Lucy

Lucy is a neighborhood girl whom Esperanza befriends even though her clothes "are crooked and old." Lucy and her sister Rachel are among the first friends Esperanza makes when she moves onto Mango Street.

Mamacita

In "No Speak English," Mamacita is the plump mother of a man across the street, a comic and tragic figure who stays indoors all the time because of her fear of speaking English.

Media Adaptations

The House on Mango Street was adapted as a sound recording entitled House on Mango Street; Woman Hollering Creek, published by Random House in 1992. It is read by Sandra Cisneros.

Marin

Marin is a Puerto Rican neighbor, an older girl with whom Esperanza and her friends are fascinated. Marin wears makeup, sells Avon, and has a boyfriend in Puerto Rico whom she secretly intends to marry, but meanwhile, she is responsible for the care of her younger cousins.

Minerva

Minerva is a young woman not much older than Esperanza who "already has two kids and a husband who left."

Juan Ortiz

"Meme" is a neighbor of Esperanza's who has a large sheepdog. "The dog is big, like a man dressed in a dog suit, and runs the same way its owner does, clumsy and wild and with the limbs flopping all over the place like untied shoes."

Meme Ortiz (See Juan Ortiz)

Rachel

Rachel is Lucy's sister, a sassy girl according to Esperanza. Esperanza and Lucy parade around the neighborhood in high heel shoes with her in the story "The Family of Little Feet."

Rafaela

Rafaela stays indoors and observes the world from her windowsill, "because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at." Rafaela stands as a symbol for the interior world of women on Mango Street, whose lives are circumscribed and bound by the structure of home and family.

Ruthie

Ruthie, "the only grown-up we know who likes to play," is a troubled, childlike woman whose husband left her and was forced to move from her own house in the suburbs back to Mango Street with her mother.

Sally

Sally wears black clothes, short skirts, nylons, and makeup. Esperanza looks upon her with fascination and wonder, and wants to emulate her, but the dark side of Sally's life is revealed in her relationship with her abusive father. She trades one type of ensnarement for another by manrying a marshmallow salesman before the eighth grade.

Sire

Sire is a young man who leers at Esperanza as she walks down the street, provoking in her inextricable feelings of desire, foreboding, and fear. Esperanza says that "it made your blood freeze to have somebody look at you like that."

The Three Sisters

"The Three Sisters" are Rachel and Lucy's elderly aunts who come to visit when Rachel and Lucy's baby sister dies. The three ladies recognize Esperanza's strong-willed nature, and plead with her not to forget the ones she leaves behind on Mango Street when she flees from there one day.

Rosa Vargas

In the story, "There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn't Know What to Do," Rosa is portrayed as a woman left in the lurch by a husband who abandoned her and their unruly kids. "They are bad those Vargas, and how can they help it with only one mother who is tired all the time from buttoning and bottling and babying, and who cries every day for the man who left without even leaving a dollar for bologna or a note explaining how come."

Post-colonialism: Definitions and Characteristics by Carlos R. Buadas (video)