The House on Mango Street

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The House on Mango Street In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, the reader experiences, through a collection of vignettes, the maturing of Esperanza, a girl who feels lost and out of place in her world. She moves with her family to a house on Mango Street, which has a direct impact on the events in the book. The house is in a poor Latino neighborhood that is racially segregated by the Caucasians who refuse to live in the same area as Spanish-Americans, even if they are of equal economic status. Esperanza is forced to mature significantly, emotionally and mentally. Throughout the novel, she endures many traumatic experiences that lead her to ultimately resolve to leave Mango Street. She begins to discover that writing can help her express herself and realizes that through writing, she can escape this neighborhood. However, when Esperanza is ready to leave, she realizes that she will never fully be able to leave Mango Street; she isn’t leaving to escape, she is leaving to come back and save the others who can’t save themselves. “The aunts, the three sisters…They must’ve known, the sisters. They had the power and could sense what was what” (Cisneros 103-104). The three sisters seek Esperanza and seem to have the ability to tell the future. They are similar to the Three Fates from Greek mythology, who can tell a person’s destiny just by looking at them. Cisneros uses this connection to show that these three sisters are more reliable than the previous fortuneteller Esperanza had sought out. Previously, Esperanza had gone out to find out her future from a local fortuneteller who used tarot cards to read her future. Because Esperanza herself was being impatient and wanting to know who she was before she discovered herself, the answer was not clear and she left more confused than before. The coming of the three sisters symbolizes Esperanza’s coming of age

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