The House on Mango Street

“There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?” James 4:12

My first impression while reading The House On Mango Street was the engaging character development.  Cisneros described characters in totally unique ways, the extensive imagery making characters feel real and concrete yet somehow still disconnected from us.  I think this disconnect stems from my lack of experience with reading from Esperanza’s perspective, a perspective of relentless discrimination.  I enjoyed reading from this fresh perspective, and I think she told this story this way purposefully.  By portraying Esperanza’s seemingly innocent observations of the characters, Cisneros seems to be questioning our societal predispositions to judge people.  She describes her unusual neighbors in ways that would cause many of us to judge them, depicting people her community arguing, abusing, and trapped in poverty.  But Esperanza describes them differently than most would; Esperanza, at least in the beginning of the novel, is hopefully open-minded about nearly everyone she encounters.  Perhaps this is just naiveté on her part but it seems to me that her relative impartiality could have a deeper and applicable message to readers against judging people for being different from us.

I liked the message I interpreted but didn’t really enjoy the set up of the book.  As I sunk into Esperanza’s story, or collection of stories, I found that my quick pauses between each story grew increasingly from mental naps to daydreams and thoughts about the rest of the day.   I let this happen, and broke the book into fragments, reading a few chapters here and there throughout the day.  Maybe this is why I thought the book seemed to lack the strong plot that I typically look for in a novel.   I left the book wanting more of a story and less chapter-to-chapter separation.