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House On Mango Street: Discussion Questions

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House On Mango Street: Discussion Questions
The House On Mango Street Discussion Questions
1. In the House On Mango Street, Esperanza is talking about how she has lived many different places in her life.
“We didn’t always live on Mango Street. Before that we lived on Loomis on the third floor, and before that we lived on Keeler. Before Keeler it was Paulina, and before that I can’t remember” she said. That quote tells you all the places she has lived, but it doesn’t tell you why Mango Street is different. The reason Mango Street is different is because it is their house. They own it, but all the other houses they had rented.
2. In the House on Mango Street, Esperanza tells you what she had imagined owning a house would be like, and what her house was actually like.
“This
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Sandra Cisneros dedicated a whole chapter to this one character, so we know that she is important. “Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life” Esperanza tells the reader. I think Cisneros dedicated this chapter to Marin because she is related a lot to Esperanza. Marin also wants something better for her life, and is making a real plan to do it. She is only a few years older than Esperanza, so she is still learning and growing, and she looks out of the doorway into the world, just like Esperanza great …show more content…
Names to Esperanza are very important because, to her, names show the beholder’s character, personality, and overall well-being. “The Eskimos got thirty different names for snow…” (35) Esperanza is intrigues by names. Names are important because they identify a person. Without a name, a person has no sense of self-identity or importance. Names distinguish one person from another.

2. In the story, Esperanza talks about names again, but the way she portrays them from before (in “my name”) is much different. “ The Eskimos got thirty different names for snow, I say”(35). In this way she portrays names as a fact, not much emotion behind it. “ In English my name means hope”(10), Esperanza tells you. As you can see, apposed to the other reference, this example is full of emotion. So the difference in the way she portrays them is the personal connection she makes with them.

A RICE SANDWICH:
1. In the story Esperanza tells you about the time she tried to eat in the canteen at school. “ The special kids, the ones who wear keys around their necks, get to eat in the canteen. The canteen! Even the name sounds important”(43) Esperanza says. It is easy for the reader to tell that Esperanza longs to eat lunch in the canteen. She says the people there are the “special kids” and that everything about it is cool, right down to the name. She wants to eat in the canteen because she wants to be special, like the other kids who eat

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