The House on Mango Street is a short novel written by a Latina author known as Sandra Cisneros. Today she is a well-known author in Chicanos Literature mainly because of this novel. The story takes place in a Latino neighborhood in Chicago most likely around the 1960's. The novel's to protagonist is Esperanza because she is the one narrating this whole book. The antagonist in the novel would be a variety of people; to be vague the whole society could be the antagonist because Esperanza had to grow up in the tough neighborhood she lived in and had to deal with all the people in it. If I were to choose specific people, they would have to be most of the men and all of the boys that she encountered in the time she lived on Mango Street. While living there Esperanza dealt with boys giving her the type of attention a girl shouldn't have at that age while some men were somewhat forceful with her. The theme of the novel is to show all the interesting things that may happen while living in a tough Hispanic neighborhood. .
The novel starts off as a girl by the name of Esperanza explaining her background before she ended up on Mango Street with her family. She describes her living arrangements and where she sleeps in night, which is a room shared by her whole family. Esperanza didn't like the house she was living in and these feelings began when a nun acted stunned and shocked when Esperanza pointed to the house that she lived in.
Esperanza then started disliking her name because she never got a nickname from it, she was just always known as Esperanza. "In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. " As she's using a simile to describe how people, when speaking English, pronounce her name, " they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth.
Cathy Queen of Cats is introduced as the great great grand cousin of the queen of France.