Prompt #1 (The Three Sisters)

"The baby died.  Lucy and Rachel's sister.  One night a dog cried, and the next day a yellow bird flew in through an open window.  Before the week was over, the baby's fever was worse.  Then Jesus came and took the baby with him far away.  That's what their mother said." (103)  For some reason I really liked this vignette.  It was longer then most and was in so much detail.  It was the first time Esperanza has, "...seen the dead" and she seemed so affected by this.  She drew this relationship between the sisters and talked about the power they had together.  I really liked when she was talking at the end of this vignette about how you can't erase what you know and you can't forget who you are.  This was just a very good vignette and I really enjoyed reading it.

Prompt #7 (Multiple Chapters)

After finishing the book, I was surprised that I really did not see much more about the role of women.  I read things here and there about how Esperanza would act with boys but they did not really relate to the fact that her role was less prominent.  Throughout the vignettes, Esperanza begins to grow as a young lady and becomes stronger and does not worry so much about being less dominant to men.

Prompt #8 (Multiple Chapters)

I feel as though one of the deeper meanings of this book is this girl finding herself.  Throughout all of the vignettes there is an issue of "names".  The fourth vignette is titled, "My Name".  Esperanza talks about what her name means and all of her hopes.  She does not love her name and wishes for many things.  I think this beginning of not loving her "name" and hoping for a lot is her trying to find herself and figure out who she is and who the people around her are.  Later on in the book, a vignette is titled "Meme Oritz".  This vignette opens with how this characters real name is Juan but he wants to be called by something else as well.  Later on in the book I read a vignette titled, "Geraldo No Last Name".  This character was a mystery and no one knew where he had come from all they knew was it was "north".  The many instances that names are mentioned in the book all relate to the fact that someone is trying to find out who they are or Esperanza is trying to figure out who they are and I think this is something Sandra Cisneros wanted to show in her book.  She wrote on the back ... "Esperanza's story is that of a young girl coming into her power, and inventing for herself what she will become.

Prompt #5 (Those Who Don't)

"Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared.  They think we're dangerous.  They think we will attack them with shiny knives.  They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake... All brown all around, we are safe.  But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake."  When I read this it really moved me.  I reread it over and over again because I had always thought about neighborhoods like that and how people could live there.  When I drive in Philadelphia in neighborhoods like this girl lives in I get so scared and always think how could people live here?  Reading this vignette it gave me a new perspective on these types of neighborhoods.  Even though people may look different and talk a different language they are still humans and act just as everyone else does.  This vignette really did move me and changed my perspective on this topic.

Prompt #6 (Multiple Chapters)

"The boys and girls live in separate worlds.  The boys in their universe and we in ours.  My brothers for example.  They've got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house.  But outside they can't be seen talking to girls."  This was a quote in the vignette titled Boys and Girls.  I chose this quote to help me create a prediction that the separation of boys and girls and the role of females in the society would be an ongoing occurrence.  I am going to predict that throughout these vignettes Esperanza keeps bringing up how the role of women are not equal to the role of men and how she feels they are less dominant.  Even though this book is not a novel and in each vignette new characters are introduced and new scenes are written about, I think this theme will be an underlying key to how characters interact and how Esperanza relates to the people around her.  This here is a video with hispanic art and words from the book.  Some of the quotes in this clip express some of my predictions about the role of women.

Prompt #14 (My Name)

"In English my name means hope.  In Spanish it means too many letters.  It means sadness, it means waiting.  It is like the number nine.  A muddy color.  It is the mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing."  This chapter as a whole is a key to the entire novel but this quote really stood out.  The vignettes do not have that much in common but one thing that really runs through all of them is Esperanzas hope.  She is full of wishes and dreams.  She dreams of the house she does not have and talks about the sister she wants as a friend but can't be.  She states, "Someday I will have a best friend all my own."  Knowing that she is full of hope really makes reading the vignettes have a different feel to them.  She is a little girl and hopes for so much out of life and to know this while reading this entire book is very helpful.

Prompt #10 (Boys and Girls)

While reading this chapter, I found a lot of connections to my own life.  The main character, Esperanza, talks about the boys and girls in her family.  She explains how she has one sister and two brothers and how in the house the boys talk to the girls all the time but outside the house they never speak.  This really reminded me of my family.  My little sister and brother are best friends when they are at home but at school they pretend like they do not even know each other.  It really shows the social pressures at school.  Along with this the narrator also talks about how her brothers are best friends but she can not be best friends with her sister because her sister is so much younger then her.  Once again, this reminded me of my family because my sister is seven years younger than me and it is hard to be close with her and consider her a friend because of the age difference at this time.

Prompt #18 (Title of the book)

The title of the book, "The House on Mango Street" plays a very big role in this book.  It is the beginning of the set of vignettes and sets a base for the tone of the book.  In the first vignette, the narrator Esperanza talks about how she always dreamed for a big house and a house of the family's own.  The house on Mango Street is the first house that really became their own that they did not have to pay rent for.  It wasn't the huge white house with a yard full of grass that she had hoped for, but it was still satisfying.  Titling the book this was like saying that this house was the beginning to all that the author wrote about.  This "dream" that Esperanza was chasing stays consistent throughout a lot of the vignettes.  If I could choose a new title I would title the book, "Esperanza, The Girl of Dreams".  I would name it this because that is one of the only steady feelings that is carried from vignette to vignette.  For example in the vignette titled "Boys and Girls," Esperanza states, "Someday I will have a best friend all my own.  One I can tell secrets to.  One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them.  Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor."  (pg 9)

 

Prompt #15 (The House on Mango Street)

I chose to illustrate through a picture part of this section.  The main character states, "They always told us that one day we would move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year.  And our house would have running water, and pipes that worked.  And inside it would have real stairs, not hallways stairs, but stairs inside like the houses on T.V.  Our house would be white with trees around it, a great big yard and grass growing without a fence.  (pg 4) This was a huge part to this section.  This "dream" of her future mostly revolving around gaining this house first.  She "felt like nothing," (pg 4) without this house and I think this was the base to her gaining a future she hoped for.  

This is the house that most correctly expressed her dreams.

Prompt #3 (The House on Mango Street)

The book I am reading is The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros.  It is a novel made up of a lot of short stories.  The first short story I read was titled "The House on Mango Street".  In this story I was introduced to a main character who did not mention her name.  She spoke of her big family with two brothers, a sister, a mom and a dad.  She acts a child with huge dreams.  While most children dream of what they will have later in life, they way this character is portrayed is something different.  She dreams of the house she needs to have and how the house on Mango St. just is not it.  It is inferred that the reason she acts this way is because her parents tell her that they will one day "move into a house, a real house that would be ours for always so we wouldn't have to move each year.  And our house would have running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs like the houses on T.V." (pg 4)  While reading, I have come to realize that this child lives a rocky life full of struggle and a future of a dream that is far from close.  She lives with three other siblings and moves from house to house each year.  These two major parts of her life, a big family and her moving a lot, have really shaped who she is and her thought process.