The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street

Author: Sandra Cisneros

Title: The House on Mango Street

Genre: Bildungsroman

Bibliographic Data in MLA format: 

    Cisneros, Sandra. House on Mango Street. Jane Schaffer Publications, 1997.

Recommended Grade Level(s): 9-10th

Number of Pages: 103

*Brief, concise plot description (no more than one paragraph): The House on Mango Street tells the story of a young girl, Esperanza, and her family as they live their lives in the poverty-stricken area surrounding Mango Street. Within the novel, Esperanza experiences crime, budding sexuality, abuse, gender roles, racism, and many more issues that young adults may face. All of the novel is written in vignette form, which attributes to Esperanza's aspirations to become a writer. 

Possible Teaching Concerns (may refer back to the text(s) used in class): The book does have some hard topics to teach such as sexuality, like on page 49 when she is talking about growing hips and boys. There is also the part with the high heels and the young girls being hollered at by the older men. But I think these are issues that are important and they are conveyed in a way in which I would be able to teach without having a very hard time with it. 

Personal Reaction to/and/or Evaluation of novel: I loved this novel. I think that Cisneros did a beautiful job and the vignettes that were used to makeup the text was a very creative way to write that made the book easier to read and stand out. I would love to teach this to my students and think that it is a spectacular example of a young adult facing real-world problems that would prepare students or at least give them an outlet to talk about things they might not normally get a chance to. 

Canonical work with which to juxtapose this novel & a brief (one paragraph) description of the rationale to connect the 2 works: I would connect this novel with Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. I chose this work because both of them have women has the main characters, one young, one adult, and both of these women are going through life changes that impact their futures. The protagonist in Their Eyes Were Watching God also is hypersexualized by older men in her community when she is just a young girl, so I could use the two in tandem to talk about sexuality and exploitation in young women.