Editor's Choice
How much is The House on Mango Street a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story?
A bildungsroman is defined as "the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both 'an apprenticeship to life' and a 'search for meaningful existence within society.' "
Quick answer:
The House on Mango Street is a bildungsroman as it follows Esperanza's growth from a naive girl to a self-aware young adult. Through vignettes, the novel explores her struggles with poverty, identity, and her cultural heritage. Esperanza's journey involves developing a love for writing, which becomes her path to escape her circumstances. Ultimately, she realizes her connection to Mango Street and the importance of helping others, completing her coming-of-age transformation.
The House on Mango Street is a novel formed by a series of vignettes that tell the story of Esperanza—a young girl growing up on “Mango Street”—an impoverished street/neighborhood in the Puerto Rican barrio of Chicago. The story is a bildungsroman, though it talks about the lives and stories of various characters, because it charts the growth of Esperanza as a character and shows how she comes of age through her experiences.
Esperanza starts the story fairly naive about life. She doesn’t know how to stand up for herself and comes to face many challenges and tragedies that ultimately shape her. At the start of the story is the vignette “The House on Mango Street” that tells the story of all the moves she has made in her young life and explores her hopes of getting out of poverty and owning a home. To illustrate the issue with the homes...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
they have lived in up to that point, she tells the story of a nun who says,
There. I had to look to where she pointed - the third floor, the paint peeling, wooden bars papa had nailed on the windows so we wouldn’t fall out. You live there? The way she said it made me feel like nothing.
At the beginning of the story, Esperanza is familiar with poverty and the stigma that comes along with being poor. The rest of the story centers around how she will get out of the barrio and make a better life for herself. She sets out her goal in the first vignette: “I knew then I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The house on Mango Street isn’t it.”
Through the rest of the story, we see how Esperanza grows into an adult while overcoming the challenges and issues she faces in her neighborhood, school, work, as well as her own family. We see her begin to develop a love for reading and writing, and throughout the story, she begins to see writing as a way out for her. Various characters encourage her in her pursuit of writing throughout the book, including Aunt Lupe in the vignette “Born Bad” when she says, “That’s Nice. That’s very good, she said in her tired voice. You just remember to keep writing, Esperanza. You must keep writing.” It is through that writing that Esperanza will leave Mango Street, but as the last part of her bildungsroman journey, she realizes that she will need to come back for others.
In the vignette “The Three Sisters” her distantly related aunts explain that,
When you leave you must remember always to come back...When you leave you must remember to come back for others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.
That idea, that Mango Street—which she does not love and wishes to escape—is a part of her becomes the last challenge she must come to terms with, and by the end of the book she reconciles it to herself. She realizes that she is Mango Street and that she will not “escape” because she must return to bring others with her: “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out” (“Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes”).
That growth, from being ashamed of her past and wishing to escape, to realizing that she has the power to help others leave Mango Street—and, by extension, poverty—is the final transformation she makes as a character in the story.
Besides chronicling Esperanza’s transition from childhood into young adulthood, the collection of vignettes traces the evolution of her worldview and her relationship to her culture and neighborhood.
Early in the text, Esperanza’s voice is clearly innocent and childlike as she describes the shame with which she views her house and the barrio. At the same time, she details the colorful characters she meets in the neighborhood with interest and respect, which indicates her natural capacity for empathy.
As she matures physically (see “Hips”) and psychologically (see “Red Clowns”), Esperanza’s feelings about her life change. She comes to appreciate her heritage and the trials she has faced, and she leaves the reader with a sense that she has finally discovered who she wants to be in the world.