Blog #4

The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I previously read The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros in middle school. I remembered always admiring the stories as well as connecting it to my own life and some of the older women around me. Reading it now years later I see more of the symbolic wording and comparison making me appreciate this novel so much more. Reading the first section, The House on Mango Street, all I thought of was my younger self and how I didn’t view my own home as a house before. In the story Esperanza describes she remembers moving a lot apartment from apartment and that now she is finally moving into a house. A house that only they will live in and won’t pay rent to anyone or deal with landlords. Something that I always dreamed of. However, Esperanza describes this house as small and nothing like the ones she’s seen on TV that had lots of bedrooms and bathrooms with a great front yard. Yet she did move into a house, just not the ideal house she saw in the media. Which I believe in actuality Esperanza is really looking for a home not her idea of a house. She’s moved plenty of times and most likely is looking for an ideal house to feel stable and have a “home.” What she doesn’t know is a home doesn’t mean it has to be a big nice house. Something that took me years to learn living in the same small apartment with my family my whole life. It took me dorming in college to realize how much that small apartment is my home and how much I actually adore and miss it when I’m away. A home doesn’t mean the big expensive house we see on TV, it’s where our happiness and love lies.