The House on Mango Street (1984, 25th
anniversary edition 2009) is set in Chicago in 1980. It is written in the first
person: a 23-and-a-half year old Latina woman.
Esperanza Cordero’s father wanted his daughter to be
a TV weather presenter, or marry and have children. Her mother said she was born
on an evil day. Esperanza wants to be a writer, while working during the day
with disadvantaged youth.
Esperanza reflects on her childhood and neighbourhood
in a part of Chicago that people are afraid of. “They think we’re dangerous,”
she writes, yet when they go “into a neighbourhood of another color” they too
are afraid. This is no picture of a happy life for many characters in this book.
Esperanza’s life is revealed through a series of
micro-vignettes, writing of her friends, relatives, and acquaintances through
the eyes of a child. Times are not favourable for the women who are beaten or assaulted or marry early or go without or never fulfil their dreams and aspirations. She
writes of a quiet defiance, such as her own: “I am one who leaves the table
like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.”
When she leaves home to live in a 100-year-old
apartment, someone asks how she did it, living alone. Esperanza writes in the
introduction to the 25th anniversary edition, “I did it by doing the
things I was afraid of doing so that I would no longer be afraid. Moving away to
go to graduate school. Travelling abroad alone. Earning my own money and living
by myself. Posing as an author when I was afraid …”
It’s easy to see why this book has been a favourite
in school curricula, for it is a quick, simple read with an inspiringly simple, but deep, message, especially for young women, but also people of all ages who have come
from an environment similar to that of the house on Mango Street. The novella
is about a person wanting to leave their neighbourhood, yet knowing that they
will return stronger, never forgetting their roots and where they came from.
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