A Place to call Home When twelve-year-old Mexican-American Esperanza Cordero and her family move to the house on Mango Street, it is the first house they have ever owned. While this is a dream come true, Esperanza is disappointed that they are still in a bad neighborhood, and that the house is rundown and small. How will embracing culture and family help shape Esperanza s views about what makes a house a home? Be a Better Reader As you work through the study guide for The House on Mango Street, you ll also practice these skills, which will help you when you read collections in the future, for school assignments or just for fun. 1. Describe how characters in a collection are developed. 2. Describe the plot development and structure of a collection. 3. Describe and analyze the role of setting in a collection. 4. Identify and analyze the themes in a collection. 5. Identify and analyze an author s purpose and perspective. 6. Explain how historical context affects readers understanding and appreciation of a collection. Behind the Scenes American poet and author Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago to a working-class Latino family. Like her main character, Esperanza, Cisneros grew up in a barrio a neighborhood where most of the community comes from Spanish-speaking origin but traveled back and forth with her family to Mexico. Growing up in a Spanish-speaking household, Cisneros often felt isolated outside of her barrio, and sought refuge in reading and writing. As an adult, she first found fame writing poetry, and has since called the vignettes that comprise The House on Mango Street lazy poetry : not quite poems and not quite stories. While Cisneros is often heralded as a representative Latina voice, many Latino critics have complained that her work promotes assimilation (blending in with society). Because Esperanza wants to leave the barrio to find a better life, these critics claim that Cisneros is sending a message to young readers that white society is better than Latino society. Critics have also accused Cisneros of perpetuating negative Mexican-American stereotypes (drug pushers, controlling husbands, and loose women, for example). Cisneros doesn t seem phased by these harsh critiques and remains adamant that her stories represent the truths of a young woman growing up in a barrio: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Plot Even though The House on Mango Street is a collection of vignettes and not a novel, Esperanza s search for identity still follows a traditional linear plot structure. What steps does Esperanza take to figure out who she is and how she fits in society? As you read The House on Mango Street, fill in the boxes for each element of the collection s plot.
The Characters A multitude of vibrant characters inhabit the barrio in The House on Mango Street. Use the following map to help keep the characters and their relationships straight. In each box, note the character s defining characteristics. On the line between each character, describe the relationship they share. Nenny Carlos & Kiki Papa Sally Alicia Esperanza Sire Mama Tito
The Setting The House on Mango Street could only be told in one place: a Latino barrio in America. All of the collection s themes, conflicts, and characters are directly related to the setting. Understanding the setting is one of the keys to understanding the collection as a whole! Therefore, anything you notice about the barrio probably relates directly to the collection s themes and characters. Use the spaces below to describe the setting of the barrio and the events that take place there. In the first column, type or write direct quotes from the collection phrases and sentences that are used to show what it s like in a barrio throughout the story. In the second column, explain in your own words what these details show or suggest about the collection s themes and characters. Direct Quote Related to Setting Your Explanation
Tracking Themes What is Sandra Cisneros trying to say about identity, and why are all readers, even those not of Mexican-American descent, able to sympathize with Esperanza s struggles? The main themes in The House on Mango Street are related to cultural identity and exploration. See if you can identify and analyze those themes. Step 1: What parts of the plot seem related to a possible theme in the collection? (Think about the main conflict and how it get resolved or worked out.) Step 2: Which characters seem related to a possible theme? Which characters change, and what do those changes suggest about cultural and personal identity? Step 3: How does Sandra Cisneros use symbols to hint at the collection s themes? What objects, people, or places stand for something bigger in the story? Step 4: What does the collection s title suggest about the collection s theme? Why do you think Cisneros named her collection The House on Mango Street? Step 5: Write one or two of the collection s main themes in your own words.
Talk About It What do you think about Sandra Cisneros s collection The House on Mango Street? How is reading a collection of vignettes different than reading a novel? In the space below each question, write an answer based on your own experiences and your own understanding of the plot. Include some textual evidence or examples that helped you arrive at your answer. 1. Throughout The House on Mango Street, twelve-year-old Esperanza struggles to figure out many aspects of how she fits into the world: culturally, socially, economically, sexually, and as a female in a male-dominated world. Describe at least three scenes from the collection that best exemplify Esperanza s journey to discover her identity. How does the collection s format represent Esperanza s struggle to puzzle all the pieces of her identity together? Textual Evidence: 2. Some critics have slammed The House on Mango Street for perpetuating negative stereotypes of Latin Americans. Describe three characters or scenes from the collection that Latino critics might find offensive. Then, either defend the value of the scenes or explain why the critics are right to feel culturally offended. Textual Evidence:
Represent! Show what you know about The House on Mango Street and its message about culture and identity. Choose one of these projects to complete and share with your teacher, classmates, and others. Choice 1: Compiling Memories When traveling to a new place, one of the best ways to preserve your thoughts and memories is in a scrapbook. Travel scrapbooks might contain photographs, brochures, leaves, receipts, menus, and many other objects that capture the mood and experience of a journey. The Mango Street Library is looking for a scrapbook that represents Latino life in the barrio. Because you have just finished reading The House on Mango Street, the library has commissioned you to compile the scrapbook! For this project, you may create either a physical or digital scrapbook of Esperanza s life in the barrio. Collect or create images, background material (such as newspaper clippings), video, and objects you think best represent the setting, themes, characters. Compile them all into a scrapbook that presents a cohesive representation Esperanza and her neighbors life in the barrio. If you choose to create a physical scrapbook, take photos of each scrapbook page for upload. If you choose to create a digital scrapbook, use PowerPoint or Prezi to make the scrapbook interactive. Remember, your scraps must be justified, so include a short (one-sentence) explanation for each inclusion. If you use any outside sources, be sure to include a Works Cited page at the end! Choice 2: Esperanza in Action! The producers at the Mango Street Theatre believe in the importance of representing cultural identity on stage. As part of a cultural awareness campaign, they want to showcase the good, the bad, and the ugly of barrio life by bringing The House on Mango Street to the stage. Since you ve just finished reading The House on Mango Street, you re in a good position to advise the Mango Street Theatre on how to adapt the collection in a way that highlights its cultural identity. For this project, write a script for a play based on the plot and characters of The House on Mango Street. Include suggestions for how to design the stage and how characters should behave. The story in your script can be simpler and shorter, but the collection s themes should come through in the play. You can deliver your script as a text document, or record and upload a video of you and your friends performing the play.