The House on Mango Street, 3.

The book, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros is definitely a bildungsroman, as exemplified through the character Esperanza.  Esperanza is the protagonist of the novella, who matures in both body and mind, through the one year of her life that is depicted to the reader.  The sum of the vignettes in the book make up the process or journey that Esperanza undergoes in moving from a girl to a woman, not to mention an individual, which was a difficult thing to do in her Chicano society, being both a female and a minority.  There were two vignettes that stood out to me as turning points in which Esperanza the girl becomes Esperanza the woman.  The first of these was the chapter called “Hips,” where Esperanza begins to realize the changes in her body and her difference from men.  This also is the point where she seems to recognize, although not really accept, the sexuality and power that comes with womanhood.  Secondly, the chapter “Red Clowns,” insinuates Esperanza being raped, and obviously strips her of an innocence of childhood, as well as making her realize again the battles of being a female.  While these chapters depict major events, both of which she did not have a choice in, which help turn Esperanza from a girl into a woman, she takes them in stride.  By the end of the book, it is obvious that Esperanza has taken her experiences and what she knows and has learned through the years and breaks the cycle of the typical female from her Latino section of Chicago.  Even more than that, not only is Esperanza courageous enough to leave what she knows for something more, she is brave enough to know that she will eventually return in order to help others.