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Book Review of The House on Mango Street Sandra Cisneros is a Mexican-American novelist and poet. Cisneros's family background provided many experiences for her to finish the book. The House on Mango Street is a 1984 coming-of-age novel which tells stories about Esperanza Cordero, a young Latin girl's life in Chicago with Chicanos and Puerto Ricans including her family members, friends she meets in Mango Street and her dreams for a better life. For me, it's like Girls Diary written by Yang Hongying which fascinates me when I was in Primary school. B oth of books’ main characters are pure maidens with major themes include their quest for a better life instead of preaching and judging. That’s my reasons of choosing the book.
To gain insight into the book, I would love to start with the writer's family background. She grew up as the only daughter in a family of six brothers, which made her feel isolated. So she creates two sisters for Esperanza. Many details reflect her loneliness in her childhood. That's also the reason why Esperanza owns so many friends in this Street. The novel focuses on her day-to-day activities and these friends by using first-present tense which makes very little distance between the readers and the main character.
After the writer's background, I would like to introduce the content and the form of the books. Actually I think the book is a type of short
stories more than a novel. Stories show how Esperanza's neighborhoods show many influences surrounding her. For example, by telling Shally accepts to kiss by boys she doesn't like, she carries out her own torch of Hymen. What’s more, she feels sorry for her mother's wasting her talent that's why she more sticks in her dream. By telling others’ stories in the book, she also figures out racial discrimination, gender discrimination and domestic violence in a thirteen-year-old girl's perspective.
What's more impressive is the writing style. It's made up of vignettes that are not poems and not full stories. Some vignettes are only two or three paragraphs long with dazzling rhymes. In born bad for example, Esperanza says: I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I'm me. One day I will jump out of my skin. I will shake the sky like a hundred violins. This cute poem shows Esperanza's dream of being a famous poet so as to impact other. Some poems in the book do advance the plots like this one. There is no way to avoid plot ups and downs however a peaceful calm will follow the storm. Just like another vignette Born Bad which talks about Esperanza's aunt. One second before she's telling how regretful her aunt is cause she has a disease and loses her legs which prevent her from making her dream of being a swimmer comes true. But the next second, she turns to encourage Esperanza to keep writing and keep herself free. This encouragement becomes a motivation for Esperanza to make her dream come true.
Interesting plots make every character in the book becomes appealing. I find the author does well in using detail to depict characters. Take the main character's name as an example, by explaining the meaning of her name (Hope in English but sadness and waiting in Spanish), she depicts a self-contemptuous girl. By using details, the author figures out problems, most problems in books are never fully resolved, just as the futures of people in the books are often uncertain.
The book has a great impact on me on account of there are many similarities between me and the main character. Esperanza has dreams, hopes and desires so as me so the stories struck a chord with me. Poems written by Esperanza show her talents which make her so different from other women because other women spend their lives trapped and isolated by man. Her ambition to realize her dream urges her to persevere in her attitude about women's rights and remains independent. When it comes to her hopes, she writes as a way of expressing herself and as a way to escape the house. She doesn’t like the house in Mango S treet as it's too shabby, so she hopes to have a house of her own. The book starts with the house in Mango Street and ends up with her dream house of her own.
Instead of being told what’s right and wrong, I just feel refreshing to hear anecdotes told from a perspective that is both innocent and wise. So I highly recommend it