Esperanza's Character Development in The House on Mango Street

“In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters.” the preceding quote is an excerpt from the house on mango street. The house on mango street is a fictional novel written by Sandra Cisneros comprised of a series of poetic vignettes that are woven together to tell a story filled with culture, brilliant imagery, and meaningful dialogue. Even though, there’s no central plot line or conflict the novel narrates the heartbreaking yet breathtaking life story of a young Hispanic girl named Esperanza that lives in the underprivileged neighborhood of mango street. The readers get to witness Esperanza’s growth. They also get to peek into her memories that are connected to the house and how they've impacted her. It tackles an assortment of challenging themes like grief and oppression, but it also tackles themes like identity, friendship, and family.

The novel begins with Esperanza Cordero speaking about her house and how her family ended up living there. She reveals that she hasn’t always lived in mango street. She lived in many different apartments before living in this house in mango street. Even though she’s not entirely content with the house, her parents assured her that it's not permanent. But she does not believe that because she's aware that they’re going to be living here for a long time. Esperanza is not fond of mango street and feels truly out of place living there, but she has accepted the fact that she needs to live there till she gets older and is able to move out.

The story continues to narrate a few of the significant moments in Esperanza’s day-to-day life, like in a vignette called “Hairs” when she introduced her family by describing their hair. You learn a little bit about each family better like when she mentions that her mother’s hair smells like bread and makes her feel safe. In another vignette “Our Good Day” when she became good friends with two girls named Lucy and Rachel because they shared a bike together. In another vignette called “Those Who Don’t” where she describes how the people who come into Mango Street always look terrified because they think of everyone there as a dangerous criminal. She later admits that she, too, feels scared when she goes into a neighborhood of “another color”. In “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark” her dad informs her that her grandfather died and he cries. Espernaza is shocked and holds him in her arms while she recalls her dad waking up in the early hours of the morning to go to work.

To conclude, although “The house on Mango street” lacks the conventions of a novella, it does share one thing with other conventional literary fiction and it’s the fact that Esperanza is changed by the end of it. The moments she’s documented allowed her self-reflect and opened her eyes to a new way of thinking. The events that fall under the difficult but pertinent themes of oppression, grief and shame challenged her character and gave her room to develop. While other events that were intertwined with the themes of identity, friendship and family nurtured the parts of her identity that she’s always identified with and loved.