The House on Mango street* is a novel or novella written by Mexican-American author, Sandra Cisneros. It explores the early teenage years of Esperanza, a girl with the desperate desire to find a true home away from Mango street and help the ones who "cannot out". Her Latino community of Puerto Ricans and other Hispanics is not enough and she is tired of the constant moving. She spends her time throughout this entire novel searching within her for the perfect home and the perfect life. Even though she does not yet know it, there is that perfect palace of a life within her, she just needs to find it.
In “Bums in the Attic”, Esperanza dreams about a house where she can control who does what and who comes in. Her papa jokes with her about not wanting to come to his office’s garden because she is “too old”. The real reason is that she is ashamed that they don’t have what others do, and that they don’t have their own garden. But she knows that when she does get her own garden in front of her own house, she’ll let the people who can’t have their own inside, because she knows how it feels. She knows how it feels and does not wish it upon anyone, enemy or friend. “One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from.”(pg. 87)
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A real house. One I could point to. But this isn't it.” The house on Mango Street isn't it. For the time being, Mama says. Temporary, says Papa. But I know how those things go.”(pg. 5) This is another example of Esperanza’s jealousy of what others have and what she doesn’t. She wants a house to point to and be proud of, a house that she is not ashamed to call home. As Sandra Cisneros says in one of her interviews, “She is looking for another way to be.” , Esperanza wants a home where she can find herself and be proud to show