The House on Mango Street

Overview

➢Context for novel

●Development of Chicana/o thought

●US socio-political changes

●Women of Color Feminism

Structure

oMovement out of body into world (voyage or quest)

oCommunity’s life revealed

oValue of creativity

oViolation and transformation

THE “ME” DECADE – 

•THE PERSONAL IS POLITICAL

•INDIVIDUAL EMPOWERMENT AROUND IDENTITY

•WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, GAY LIBERATION MOVEMENT

•GAINING A “VOICE” – REPRESENTATION

NARRATIVE FORM

•MOVEMENT FROM BODY TO THE SOCIAL

•PLACING SELF

•COMMUNITY: SITE OF IDENTITY BUT ALSO OF FAILURE

•FORM

•DEFAMILIARIZATION OF LANGUAGE

•LITERAL TRANSLATION FROM SPANISH (METAPHRASE OR CALQUE)

•POETIC RHYTHM AND RHYME

EMPLOYS DEVALUED FORMS OF STORYTELLING

•CHILDREN’S RHYMES

•FAIRYTALES

•DOMESTIC DETAILS

SETTING

13

•HOME (“HOUSE ON MANGO STREET”)

•SITE OF HOMELESSNESS

•FAILED EXPECTATIONS

•REAL CONDITIONS OF HOUSE

•INTERPENETRATION OF SELF AND

MOVEMENT INTO WORLD

14•Awareness of body (“Hairs”)

•Distinction of identities

•Placing self in relation to family

MOVEMENT INTO WORLD

15

•Self-Identification (“My Name”)

•Bicultural: living in two languages

•Awareness of gender oppression

•Sense of containment

•Esperanza expresses desire for a new self

MOVEMENT INTO WORLD

16

•Friendship (“Our Good Day”)

•Social bonding between girls

•Recognition of self in and of place

MOVEMENT INTO WORLD

17

•Family bond (“Laughter)

•Finding similarities

•Related to sense of place

•Bicultural sensibility

Community and alienation

•Failed expectations (“Gil’s Furniture”)

•Site of consumerism

•Site of disappointment

Community and alienation

•Social Conflicts (“Louie”)

•Dislocated identities

•Proscribed gender roles

•Gendered freedom does not ensure freedom

•Gender/ethnic roles enforced (“Marin”)

•Gender representation

•Gender constraint

Community and alienation

•Community failure (“There Was an Old Woman”)

•Ironic narrative form using devalued form:
nursery rhyme

•Family neglect

•Community resignation

Creation

➢Imagination as creation (“Darius”)

●Contrasts stupidity and insight

●Affirms access to a sense of the holy

●Affirms power of imagination for this access

Creation

➢Sexualization (“The Family of Little Feet”)

●Feet as means of mobility

●Shoes as symbol of growing sexuality

●Sexuality a form of power and danger

➢Awareness of sexual self (“Hips”)  

●Different significance 

●Esperanza’s “authority”

●Leaving childhood and Nenny

 Violation and Transformation

●Alienated labor (“The First Job”)

●Driven by need for money

●Dislocation of self from work

●Lack of consciousness

●Passivity 

●Sexual violation

Violation and Transformation

●Awareness of death (“Papa Who Wakes Up”)

●New view of father as he weeps

●Bilingual expressivity

●New responsibility and awareness

●Her new position in family

●Awareness of father’s laboring body

●Awareness of impending loss

Loss of Innocence

10

●Patriarchal violence (“What Sally Said”)

●Sense of family shame

●Garden of Eden (“Monkey Garden”)

●Images of growth/decay

●Playing with sexuality

●Esperanza as failed savior

●Division between being child and adult

●Leads to alienation from self

●Exile from childhood

Sexual violation (“Red Clowns”)

●Disillusionment

●World of lies

●Disidentification

●Dizzying upside down world

Reclaiming Self

➢Imagination (“The Three Sisters”)

●Sense of mystical fate

●New vision of return

➢Lost year (“Alicia and I”)

●Undoing the year on Mango Street

●Names reason for coming back:

●To make it better

Reclaiming Self

➢“A House of My Own”

●Movement from innocence to independence

●Culmination of expectation

●Achieved through writing

Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes”

●Leaving/returning 

●Reason for narrative

●Displacement and re-placement

●Reader involved in creating meaning