Esperanza’s house on Mango Street is not the house she dreamed on when she lived on Loomis Street, not the kind of house her parent’s talked about, not the house she wanted. Her house on Mango Street is a small, red house with even smaller stairs leading to the door. The brick are falling out of place and to get inside, one must shove the door, swollen like Esperanza’s feet in later vignettes, open. Once inside, where you are never very far from someone else, there are small hallway stairs that lead to the only one shared bedroom and bathroom. This house is just, “For the time being,”[5] Esperanza claims, for this is nothing like the house she longs for. Esperanza does not like her current living conditions, saying she wants, “A real house. One I can point to. But this isn’t …show more content…
When the two girls go to enter Cathy’s house, the steps leading to the door are slanted and badly made. Cathy provides the excuse that they were “made that way on purpose... so the rain will slide off it.” Both these girls view their houses as more than just a place to sleep, but rather a statement about themselves and about their families. The grass is always greener on the other side, but Esperanza wants it to be otherwise. Esperanza wants to live a large house, like those on the hill her father works at. Esperanza gives a detailed description of her dream house in the first vignette, “The House on Mango Street.” She longs for a large, white house with stairs like those seen on T.V., a basement and three bathrooms or more. She wants a house with a large yard where trees and grass can grow without a fence. In “Bums in the Attic,” the reader learns that Esperanza would host those without a home in the attic, and allow them to stay. Additionally, in “A House of My Own,” the reader learns that Esperanza wants a house for herself, not one bought by any man she is beholden to, but instead one she can know is hers and only