Just as Esperanza is about to hesitantly agree, he grabs her face and forces himself on her. At one point, he tells Esperanza that it is his birthday, and that he would like her to give him a birthday kiss. During her first day there, she meets a man who seems friendly and invites her to sit with him during their lunch break. Esperanza is sexually assaulted - twiceĮsperanza's first assault occurs at her first job as an assistant at a photo finishing company that her aunt helps get. And each time that he comes back home, he hits his wife again. Yet another friend, Minerva, is married to a man who keeps leaving her only to return again. Another one of her friends, Alicia, never explicitly says how her father abuses her, but does state that she is afraid of him. And there's Tito and his friends, who steal Esperanza's friend Sally's keys, and forces her to go behind a pickup truck and give each of the boys a kiss to get her keys back.Īnd the husbands and fathers (except for Esperanza's) are abusiveĮsperanza's friend Sally's father beats her black and blue, often with a belt buckle. Then there's the neighborhood's Bum man who, upon seeing Esperanza, her sister, and their friends out on the sidewalk wearing high heels, tries to convince them to give him a kiss in exchange for one dollar. There's a man in a nearby building, named Joe the baby-grabber, who Esperanza is told to keep away from since he's dangerous (kind of obvious, given his name). Almost all of the male characters on Mango Street are creepsĪn absurd number of the men and boys that Esperanza meets in her neighborhood are creepy as hell. Esperanza's friend Sally eventually ends up trapped in a marriage with a man who won't allow her to talk on the phone or meet her friends, much less leave the house. Another character named Mamacita is not only physically trapped in her house, but also can't speak English, and becomes linguistically trapped since she can't communicate with those around her. Esperanza's neighbor Rafaela is locked up in her apartment and has to ask the neighborhood kids to bring her coconut and papaya juice since she can't leave. Across Mango Street, women are stuck looking out at the world through their windows, but not actually venturing out. But then again, who would? Almost all of the female characters on Mango Street are trappedīeginning with Esperanza's memory of her great-grandmother, there's a repeated image of women being trapped in their own houses. She also describes her great-grandmother as being a very sad woman, who could never forgive her husband/kidnapper for what he did. The kidnapping ends up shaping much of Esperanza's identity, since she often compares herself to her great-grandmother. It turns out though, that Esperanza's great-grandmother was actually kidnapped by Esperanza's great-grandfather, who apparently threw a sack over her head and carried her off "as if she were a fancy chandelier." Um, WHAT?! Well, that's kind of problematic. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, $8, Amazon Esperanza's great-grandfather kidnapped her great-grandmotherĮarly in the novel, Esperanza introduces the reader to her namesake-her great-grandmother. But if you haven't picked it up since your awkward teen years, here's what you may have missed from The House on Mango Street: Since its publication in 1984, The House on Mango Street has become required reading in schools and universities across the country. And when you were reading it the first time around, you probably weren't equipped to recognize a lot of the deeply disturbing events that unfold throughout the book. You may even remember your teacher talking about the novel's use of vignettes, or the short scenes that are used to tell Esperanza's story.īut like so many books you enjoyed as a kid, The House of Mango Street deals with some pretty tough themes under the surface. When most of us picked up the novel, we were still learning about things like metaphor, personification, and imagery in our English classes. Sometimes funny, and often deeply profound, The House on Mango Street is a story about growing up, finding out where you come from, where you belong, and who you want to be. The book is narrated by a Latina teenager, Esperanza Cordero, and tells the story of one year of her life on Mango Street, in a Chicago barrio. At one point or another, we've all read Sandra Cisneros' novella The House on Mango Street.
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