House on Mango Street, a Home in the Heart Not one to Depart

A Home in the Heart is Not One to Depart*

In the novel, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros’s narrator, Esperanza, gradually learns there is no real correlation between a physical structure and a home; rather a home is made from things such as love, family, culture, tradition, and memories, not bricks and mortar.

The opening vignette of Cisneros’s novel, introduces the reader to Esperanza’s intense feeling of displacement. Throughout the book, she feels as though she has no place to call her home. Although they have a house, she is embarrassed of it and does not connect with it in such a way where she is truly comfortable with it. The house on Mango Street only fuels her desire, “to have a house. A real house. One [she]could point to” because “[their current house on Mango Street] isn’t it”. (5)

As the vignettes progress, Esperanza’s embarrassment of her home grows. In “A Rice Sandwich” all Esperanza wants to do is eat lunch in the canteen with the children who live too far away from school to eat