Book Review: The House on Mango Street

The title of the book isThe House on Mango Street because, it is the place where Esperanza lived in for a year. She was always ashamed of her house because it looked, it symbolized her being ashamed of who she is. The neighborhood holds many bad memories for Esperanza so she doesn’t want to be part of it, or ever recognize she was part of it.

This is the memoir of Esperanza, a young, mexican girl who lives in the United States in a tough neighborhood. She is subject to racism for being mexican, and subject to sexism for being a women. She strives to become independent and surpass all the limitations society has imposed her. Her depictions of the world through her use of metaphors makes you feel as if you were seeing what she has described.

This book is organized in vignettes. They range from one page to five pages. The vignettes are told in chronological order, but she skips in time. She never goes back though. All vignettes have names, and no pictures are given, no need for the pictured because of her vivid portrayal.

The memoirist has come to realize on the book that she isn’t the steryotipical women, because she doesn’t want to be trapped in the kitchen, making sandwhiches for men, when they come back from work. She wants to be like men, in the sense that she wants to go out, and work, and not need to be dependent on marrying a welathy man to be succesful.

I think that this book was one of the best I’ve read in a while. I loved the message that it held, and her out of ordinary metaphors.

Lines We Love:
“At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name – Magdalena- which is uglier than mine.” Pg.11.