The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros | Teen Ink

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

September 12, 2017
By Bloodwaters BRONZE, Lancaster, California
Bloodwaters BRONZE, Lancaster, California
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Do you value life? Do you value your time? If the answer is yes, then don’t read this book. It is utterly useless, and there are other books worthy of your time. This book was created by the self-proclaimed feminist Sandra -Cisneros. The title of this book is “The House on Mango Street.” It should have been called the “ Patriarchal Society: A Biased Feminist Look In.”
 

The plot of “The House on Mango Street,” is a hispanic girl named Esperanza living in a rural community, and is looking for a house (figuratively). She is actually looking for herself. She meets different people, and she experience different events throughout her life, as she reinvents herself. And she is met with some obstacles (who doesn’t ?), as she lives in a overpacked house full of relatives and no real space of her own.
  

This is what I found annoying, petty, and blanted examples of sophism. First off, her dedication is to “To the Women”, she excludes all other people, this wouldn’t bother me if her story was actually empowering. However, it paints women as victims of male oppression, that are struck in patriarchal society that keeps them in traditional gender roles. And that is not the most annoying or pettiest part of this story. That honor is reserved for the main character Esperanza. She is whining, entitled, belittle other characters. Which in itself is fine if her character was represented in that way, but she wasn’t, she was promoted as this girl “finding herself” but she didn’t reinvent herself she stayed the same! She stayed annoying , complaining, little girl. And true injustice is that all other characters are flat and forgettable. The story doesn’t go in depth, we do not connect with them like we were promised by the creator, she and reviewers promised us a “rare mexican delicacies”, and instead she gave us “hot garbage”.
  

My claims do not come unsupported. Hear it from the horse’s mouth. From actually pages from her book. In her story the main character Esperanza belittles her sister dreams all the while having similar dreams, classic case of narcissistic personality disorder: “Nenny says she won’t wait her whole life for a husband to come and get her... She wants things all her own, pick and choose. Nenny has pretty eyes and it’s easy to talk that way if you are pretty.” That is what Esperanza said about her sister wanting to be independent and self-suffice. Now, here what Esperanza wants to be. “ I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain.” Esperanza claims that she “decided” not to grow up tame like the others but she didn’t just decided on that she decided that after hearing what her sister said! It is disgusting! That you are willing to trample on your sister’s dreams and say it is only because she is pretty she can have them. Esperanza has a crab like mentality, that will only set to destroy her. I have a dozen more quotes but they are not needed, because this says enough.
  

This book at best is a time passer, and at worst your assignment for English class. But, on a serious note this book is garbage, and there are better books out there to read. I had the displeasure of reading this, and would not recommend this to my worst enemy.


The author's comments:

I like to read and I have grown-up in an urban community. So I can relate to some of the issues. And have experenice what it like to move around a lot, to be homeless, to scrape to buy grocery, but this story is grotesque. We are all in this together, and together we can overcome. You will not get very far, by yourself.


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