How do outsiders perceive Esperanza's neighborhood in The House on Mango Street?

Outsiders see Esperanza's neighborhood as a dangerous place. They are frightened if they come into it. They are afraid the residents will attack them with "shiny knives." To outsiders, the shabby, run-down houses and the Latino people make the area seem dangerous

Esperanza says the only people who come into the neighborhood are the "stupid" people who get lost. She says that the neighborhood is not at all scary to the people who live in it. The residents know that the men who might look intimidating to outsiders are nobody to fear. They know, too, that with "brown all around," there is nothing to be worried about. For them, other neighborhoods are frightening.

Esperanza's point is that people tend to judge by stereotypes that may or may not bear any semblance of reality. The shabby externals of Mango Street are not the entirety of it and do not represent the souls of the residents who infuse the place with light and life. People are people when you get to know them, rich or poor. Through writing her book, Esperanza is helping us as readers to get to know her neighborhood and the people in it so that we don't have to be frightened of it as the outsiders are.

How do Esperanza's neighbors perceive their neighborhood in The House on Mango Street?

In the section titled “Cathy Queen of Cats,” Esperanza makes her first friend in her new neighborhood. Cathy tells Esperanza that the reason her family is moving is that the neighborhood is going “bad.” Part of this includes Latinx families like Esperanza’s moving there, a fact that Esperanza doesn’t quite understand. Cathy’s attitude toward the neighborhood is that it is lower-class and going downhill.

Esperanza and her friends, however, don’t share this vision of the barrio. In the section “Those Who Don’t,” Esperanza contrasts her view of the neighborhood with that of outsiders who are afraid to be there at night. Esperanza insists that the only reason people fear them is because they don’t know the people, a conclusion that shows how prejudice can influence one’s perception. For Esperanza, the neighborhood is normal and familiar, full of interesting and diverse people.

Finally, in “Darius and the Clouds,” Esperanza complains about urban life, which doesn’t have enough of the natural world for her to observe. One day, when the sky finally has some clouds to look at, a neighborhood boy makes an insightful comment about a cloud being God. This shows that although the neighborhood is imperfect, the children who live there use their imaginations to make things better for themselves.

How do Esperanza's neighbors perceive their neighborhood in The House on Mango Street?

Esperanza is the narrator of The House on Mango Street. She lives on Mango Street with her family and experiences the ups and downs of life in the barrio of Chicago. People's views of Esperanza range widely—different people perceive her differently based on her race, social class, and abilities. Esperanza's view of herself is occasionally colored by the opinions of others.

One of the first views we see is that of the nun at the start of the book. The nun questions where Esperanza lives, and when she points to her house, the nun looks concerned. It is clear from the story that Esperanza lives in poverty, and she is used to people looking down on her for the conditions that she experiences.

On the other hand, some people look at Esperanza and see the potential that she has because of her intelligence. At a wake, some of her distant aunts visit and talk about her. They say things like,

She’s special.
Yes, she’ll go very far.
Yes, yes, hmmm.
Make a wish.
A wish?
Yes, make a wish. What do you want?
Anything? I said.
Well, why not?
I closed my eyes.
Did you wish already?
Yes, I said.
Well, that’s all there is to it. It’ll come true.

The aunts tell Esperanza that she has to come back to the neighborhood after she leaves because she needs to bring her education, money, and power back to make a change. She has to remember where she comes from. This view of Esperanza is more common as the book progresses. People begin to see what Esperanza can do: she is smart, and she can write.

In The House on Mango Street, how does Esperanza portray her neighborhood?

Esperanza portrays her neighborhood as run down and a bit dangerous. Cathy tells Esperanza that her family is moving away because the neighborhood is getting bad. Esperanza first mentions the area beyond her own home in the chapter called "Our Good Day." While riding on a bicycle with her new friends, she says, "We ride faster and faster. Past my house, sad and red and crumbly in places, past Mr. Benny's grocery store on the corner, and down the avenue which is dangerous." Esperanza has already detailed that her house is not in the best condition in the first chapter of the book, but here, she also briefly mentions that the avenue is a dangerous street.

Esperanza describes the junk store by saying it is "small with just a dirty widow for light." Most of her descriptions of places in the neighborhood contain adjectives with negative connotations that make readers picture a neighborhood that contains old homes and businesses that are falling apart. Even the newer house that Cathy lived in, which was built by Cathy's father, was not built well. It is described as having slanted floors, rooms that go uphill or downhill, and lopsided steps.

In the chapter "Those Who Don't Know," Esperanza tells us how other people view her neighborhood. She says, "Those who don't know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we're dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake." Here, Esperanza makes it clear that people who do not live in her neighborhood only end up there by mistake.

Her neighborhood isn't a place people go unless they live there. This gives the idea that her neighborhood is insignificant; however, Esperanza makes it clear that people who are scared of her neighborhood are stupid. Esperanza does not seem to think that her run down neighborhood is especially dangerous. She says, "All brown, all around, we are safe." Even though Esperanza desires to have a better home and recognizes that her neighborhood is not the best, as is apparent in her descriptions, she still believes it is a safe place.

In The House on Mango Street, when describing her house or where she lives, what does Esperanza convey about her self-identity?

I believe that this question is asking about Esperanza's description in chapter one. The general description of her family's house on Mango Street is honest with a heavy dose of pessimism. Esperanza tells readers that she knew that her family would one day have a "real house." She then describes an imaginary house that resembles the houses that she sees on TV. Esperanza desires a house that she can proudly point to as her family's house, and the chapter ends with her saying that the house on Mango Street is not that house.

This notion of being able to point to a house with pride lets readers know that a part of her self-identity is tied to the quality of a house. It's a materialistic worldview. She believes that a higher quality house will somehow make her a better, more desirable person. By living in an embarrassing house, Esperanza incorrectly believes that she needs to be embarrassed about herself too.

You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived there. I nodded.

In The House on Mango Street, what is Esperanza's neighborhood like?

Esperanza's neighborhood is central to the setting of The House on Mango Street. Nearly all the action in the book's poems and vignettes take place out and about in this neighborhood rather than in Esperanza's house. Her barrio is a poor, mostly Latino section of Chicago where outsiders rarely go. Here, everyone seems to know everyone else's business and public gossip is a common pastime. This is a vibrant neighborhood that includes Esperanza's school, a number of mom and pop corner stores, Gil's junk shop, and kids playing in the street. Most of the homes here have a neglected garage and a small yard separating them from their neighbors.

In spite of the liveliness of the neighborhood, Esperanza finds its poverty and insularness nearly suffocating. Even though Esperanza is initially excited to move in, her new neighbors warn her about the deteriorating nature of the barrio.

In The House on Mango Street, what is Esperanza's neighborhood like?

Esperanza lives in a very poor neighborhood, called a bario, in Chicago. It is a street of run down houses and questionable neighbors. The neighborhood is becoming "worse" when Esperanza's family moves into their house, as evidenced by Cathy's family (a girl Esperanza meets in the beginning of the novella) moving away. Though poor, the neighborhood is full of colorful characters like Rachel and Lucy, the sisters Esperanza becomes close friends with, Meme, a boy who jumps out of a tree, and the Vargas children, a family of many children who run around uncontrolled. Esperanza's neighborhood is also somewhat dangerous, especially to young girls, as is evidenced in the vignette "Clowns" where Esperanza is raped.

Is the house on Mango Street the kind of house Esperanza always wanted?

Esperanza isn't longing for a particular kind of house. What she wants is a house she can call her own: "a house all my own—Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." She won't forget where she came from, though: "They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot come out."

The house on Mango Street is not that ideal house of which she dreams:

One day I will say goodbye to Mango. I am too strong for her to keep me here forever. One day I will go away. Friends and neighbors will say, What happened to that Esperanza? Where did she go with all these books and paper? Why did she march so far away?

In The House on Mango Street, what is Esperanza's neighborhood like?

Esperanza spends her early childhood moving from shabby apartment to shabby apartment. After the water pipes break in their apartment in Loomis, her parents decide to buy a house.

Her parents had always dreamed and talked of a house in the suburbs, with a big yard and three washrooms, like the homes they saw on TV. It would be white, with trees in the yard, a real staircase they could have all to themselves, and a basement.

The house on Mango Street, in contrast, is small and urban. It is made of crumbling red bricks, a door that is "swollen" so that you have to push it to get in, and no yard, just four elms on the city sidewalk out front by the curb. The windows are tiny, and there is only one bathroom. The staircase is like those in their apartments, and everyone has to share a bedroom with someone else. The backyard is taken up by a garage that they have no car to put inside. Although the parents own the house, it falls far short of their dreams.

Houses in the novel function symbolically. Esperanza's house on Mango Street represents the cramped, limited possibilities she will have in this neighborhood. Nevertheless, it also represents her family putting down roots.