The House on Mango Street
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LearningTranscript
00:00That's so cool that you bought one of those tiny homes!
00:07I hope you like my housewarming gift.
00:18It's, uh... cute?
00:22Dear Rita and Moby,
00:24Our teacher is a huge fan of the house on Mango Street.
00:27What's so great about it?
00:29Some chapters are only one paragraph long.
00:32Mr. Cutler's class.
00:34Sorry guys, I'm with Mr. Cutler on this one.
00:38Mango Street is one of my absolute favorites.
00:42The novel is all about trying to figure out who you really are.
00:46Which can be kinda hard when you're a teenager.
00:49Yeah, I totally know how that feels.
00:52So does the author, Sandra Cisneros.
00:55She's Chicana, an American woman with family roots in Mexico.
01:00Her own childhood experiences form the basis of Mango Street.
01:04The narrator, Esperanza, is the oldest of four siblings.
01:08Her family doesn't have much money.
01:11And being Mexican-American is a central part of her identity.
01:15Esperanza's family has just moved into a...
01:18Uh, yeah, a house on Mango Street.
01:21The first her parents actually own.
01:23But it's tiny, with barely enough room for her six family members.
01:28It's a bit run down, and not at all what Esperanza was expecting.
01:33In the book, houses are an important symbol.
01:36When something represents a bigger idea.
01:39More than a roof and four walls,
01:41houses stand for your identity, and your place in the world.
01:45And for most of Mango Street, Esperanza dreams of getting away from her home.
01:50She calls it the house I belong, but do not belong to.
01:55Well, I think it means that even though she lives there, she doesn't feel at home.
02:00A lot of the lines are a little tricky like that.
02:03Mango Street's more like a book of poems than a typical novel.
02:07It's a series of vignettes.
02:09Brief descriptions of powerful moments.
02:12Like poetry, the language is packed with multiple meanings.
02:16It's narrated by Esperanza in the first person voice.
02:20Each vignette draws on details from her daily life.
02:23Almost like entries in a diary.
02:26In one way or another, all of them focus on questions of her identity.
02:31Okay, here we go.
02:33My name.
02:35In English, my name means hope.
02:37In Spanish, it means too many letters.
02:40It means sadness.
02:42It means waiting.
02:43It is like the number nine.
02:46Esperanza is actually the Spanish word for hope.
02:50But she sees her name differently.
02:52She links it to similar sounding words.
02:55One meaning despair, the other waiting.
02:59Instead of inspiring hope, her name reminds her of just the opposite.
03:05Too many letters is kind of a joke.
03:07Esperanza is insecure about her long, uncommon name.
03:11She's scared people might find it weird or hard to pronounce.
03:15Decoding her name reflects larger questions about what defines her.
03:19Is it where she lives?
03:21Her family's background?
03:23Being a girl?
03:25In the end, Esperanza decides it's up to her to define herself.
03:29She calls it a baptism, the Catholic naming ceremony for babies.
03:34And settles on the mysterious sounding ZZ, the X.
03:39Well, the X is sort of everything and nothing.
03:42Like a variable in a math equation.
03:44You have to figure it out.
03:46It's still a mystery, even to Esperanza.
03:49Or, as she puts it later in the book,
03:52everything is holding its breath inside me.
03:55Everything is waiting to explode, like Christmas.
03:58She's bursting with excitement about adulthood,
04:01but she defines it with the ultimate childhood image,
04:04presents on Christmas morning.
04:07In many ways, the book is all about growing up.
04:10That's why Mango Street is called a coming-of-age novel.
04:14Over the year in which it takes place,
04:16Esperanza is caught between childhood and maturity.
04:19In one vignette, she catches sight of her more adult body
04:23while playing jump rope with her friends.
04:25In another, they all try on high-heeled shoes,
04:29but are scared by some of the attention it gets them.
04:33For Esperanza's friends,
04:35growing up and getting married looks like a chance at total freedom.
04:39But she begins to see things differently.
04:42On Mango Street, the houses belong to men,
04:46and women belong to the houses,
04:49where they're limited to two roles, mother and wife.
04:52They spend their lives leaning out windows,
04:55watching the world go by.
04:57Esperanza dreams of a home outside of this place
05:00where men are in charge.
05:02She describes it as not a man's house,
05:06not a daddy's, a house all my own,
05:09a house quiet as snow,
05:11a space for myself to go,
05:13clean as paper before the poem.
05:17Writing is her means of constructing her dream house.
05:21That's why she compares it to a blank piece of paper.
05:24Snow suggests the whiteness of paper, too.
05:27Its emptiness gives Esperanza total freedom
05:30to create her own space,
05:32in other words, to create her own self.
05:37Yeah, you could say that this book is her imaginary home, made real.
05:41Oh, look, here comes my housewarming gift.
05:44Paper!
05:55Huh. Guess I should have gotten you a digital subscription.
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