The House On Mango Street Rdquo Analysis

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Payne 1 “The House on Mango Street” : Esperanza’s Experiences Tyler Payne Mrs. Austin Research Paper Word Count 3557 2-17-09 Payne 2 The novel, The House on Mango Street was written by Sandra Cisneros. The novel deals with an insecure individual going by the name of Esperanza who tries to find the true meaning of life through her personal experiences. Esperanza Cordero remembers her life on Mango Street and all the people she meets while there. Although her family has not always lived there, it is perhaps the most important place she has lived, for it represents her heritage and upbringing. Esperanza tells the tales of all the people and experiences she has with her little sister, Nenny. She meets Cathy, a…show more content…
Cisneros has six brothers and is the only daughter in the family. She moved frequently during her childhood and visited Mexico often, to see her grandmother. Like Esperanza, the main character in The House on Mango Street, Cisneros recalls these moves as painful experiences. “Because we moved so much, and always in neighborhoods that appeared like France after World War II--empty lots and burned-out-buildings--I retreated inside myself'" (Sagel 74). Cisneros found an outlet in writing. In high school she wrote poetry and was the literary magazine editor. She earned a BA in English from Loyola University of Chicago in 1976. However, it wasn't until working on her master's degree at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop in the late 1970's that she says she found her way, as a working-class, Mexican-American woman. The experience of recognizing her difference from other students at Iowa eventually led to the writing of The House on Mango Street, which was published by Arte Publico Press of Houston in 1984 and won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award in 1985. “Even though Mango Street has been highly acclaimed, her collection of poems, My Wicked Wicked Ways, is perhaps the most widely read”(Tomkins 37). She returned to…show more content…
She won two fellowships from the National Endowment for the arts, one was for fiction in 1982 and one was for poetry in 1987. During this time, she also met her literary agent, Susan Bergholz, who after seeing a small packet of short stories encouraged Cisneros to develop them into one what was to become Woman Hollering Creek. Cisneros won many awards for this including: the PEN Center West Award for Best Fiction of 1991, the Qualitiy Paperback Book Club New Voices Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Lannan Foundation Literary Award, and was selected as a noteworthy book of the year by The New York Times and the American Library Journal. In 1995, Cisneros won the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. She moved to San Antonio where she has she is now lecturing to students at a local arts center. “Much as the writer Esperanza promises to return to Mango Street at the end of that novel, Cisneros has continually returned to her community, showing the powerful connection between art, politics, and everyday life”(Juffer). "The House on Mango Street" begins with Esperanza’s experience of constantly moving from one poor area of Chicago to the next. In the first paragraph, Esperanza’s memory of the street names on which her family has lived emphasizes how important the concept of "home" is throughout the story. The reader is introduced Esperanza’s family

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