15 - Annabelle N: The House on Mango Street (Looking Back)

 

I had never read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros until we were assigned it in class. And I’m still not sure how I feel about it.

The book is very short, and it doesn’t have a traditional story structure. It’s made up of vignettes that stand on their own. There aren’t any connected plot threads between the vignettes, which made the reading experience slightly frustrating, but at the same time the disconnectedness illustrates feelings of childhood and coming of age. The themes of racism, sexism, and insecurity do weave the short stories together even though no real plot points connect. If you don’t like this format, you can at least acknowledge that it was a purposeful choice.

Not just the “plot,” but the structure of sentences also differs from a normal book. There are no quotation marks for dialogue, which sometimes makes it difficult to decipher when and where characters are speaking. But the choice makes it seem as if someone is reciting a story to you. When someone is verbally reciting a story, they don’t say “quote and end quote.” Perhaps this was the intention, to give The House on Mango Street the illusion of a story being told aloud.

Whether or not you like Sandra Cisneros’ creative writing choices, the way this book brought attention to her culture and childhood is a good eye-opener, and it helps us realize that writing rules can sometimes be broken. Breaking unspoken rules in writing may be controversial, but when it’s executed right then it can serve the desired purpose.

Word count: 265