Literary Merit of House on Mango Street (Essay Sample)

House on Mango Street is one of the best books I have read about someone's life as it gives a perfect example of a young girl who is growing up and is figuring out what is happening in her life. House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a book that is about a girl who just moved into a new place. She wants it to be their home and she wants to feel like she is accepted. There is a problem though because of where she lives and what she looks and where she comes from. When she finally starts to fit in she has some very traumatic experiences. This event brings her closer to fitting in with the adults in her life because she just hit puberty and is beginning to grow up and learning about life and what she is called to. This book I believe has enough merit to be in what I call the American book hall of fame because it gives us a very good perspective. House on mango street is about a girl growing up in a poor neighborhood in Chicago, we see how she grows up and how she has to struggle with problems in her life.

House on mango street has literary merit because it shows how hard it is and how she grows up in the poor part of Chicago with not much. It says this is the first house they have owned and even though it is small and barely fits them but it is theirs so she likes it. “The house on Mango Street is ours, and we don't have

to pay rent to anybody, or share the yard with the people downstairs, or be careful not to make too much noise, and there isn't a landlord banging on the ceiling with a broom.” (Cisneros 1 ). It shows that she is grateful for what she has and she is poor as this is the biggest house they could afford for all the people in the house. They also only have this as the first house as they had to rent all of their other houses. This creates where esperanza comes from. She comes from almost nothing and we see that later in the story.

House on mango street deserves literary merit because it captures the feelings of esperanza's she is growing and becoming an adult. This means we see her as she grows in her feelings and emotions but also her understanding of the world around her. At the end of the book, we see that she is ready to move away and start a new life. She knows that she is too strong to stay here and she needs to break free from mango street  “One day I will pack my bags of books and paper. One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away.``(Cisneros 110) This says that she is thinking about the future and that she knows what she is doing and where she is going. She also knows that she is strong enough to escape the life her parents gave her and be able to become what she wants. It tells us that she is a girl that knows what she needs to do to get and knows she can get out. We also see her thinking about the future and thinking about what is next in her life as she becomes an adult and moves on with her life this draws us in right at the very end with where is her life going and how is she going to be able to hold the pressure of the life she has in front of her. 

House on mango street has literary merit because it shows us that there is a big divide in the neighborhoods in Chicago and how they live differently than the rest of the people. “All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight.” (Cisneros 28). It talks about how they feel like they have to stay in their neighborhood because they don't feel like they belong, they feel that they can’t be there as they are different and they can't be like them. This gives us how separated and how bad it is to live in these neighborhoods but it could also put us on edge as to what could happen if they go into another neighborhood where they aren't welcomed. This also creates a sense that they are forced to stay there and they can’t leave without feeling out of place.

The House on Mango Street is very much deserving of literary merit and also being one of the books in the book hall of fame. This also should be taught around high schools in America. It shows what it is like for some people in the country.