House on Mango Street was not written
as an autobiography - exactly. Do not read into these stories as true events of the
author's life. Instead of plot details, Sandra Cisneros uses the truth from her own
childhood and experience the form of emotions that Esperanza feels. The events
themselves may or may not be true.
Another thing to note is
that Cisneros attempts to paint a realistic picture of not only her childhood, but of
her culture, the lives of those she grew up with and around, and the common
stories many of them shared (again in the form of common emotions, desires,
fears, etc.). Many of the chapters of this book come from ideas Cisneros gained while
working with Chicano students at Loyola Univeristy.
What
she has created in Esperanza (and this novel) is a carefully crafted blending of common
experience and emotion for young latino women who lived much the same way Cisneros
herself grew up. The novel is realistic fiction - not an
autobiography.
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