The House on Mango Street

The House on Mango Street Summary | The House on Mango Street Summary

The book begins with the title piece, "The House on Mango Street." The young narrator, Esperanza, recalls how her family did not always live on Mango Street and only moved to it in the 70s after living in a terrible place on the third floor of a rundown building on Loomis Street. There was a Laundromat on the first floor of that building, which had been robbed, and as a result, boarded up, making the building look barren and dangerous. There were bars on the windows of her third floor home, so that she and her brothers and sister would not fall out onto the street.

When Esperanza moves to Mango Street, her family has grown to six people, including Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, her sister Nenny, and herself. As the oldest, she is responsible for various chores and responsibilities in the family and in the house. She recalls moving often, and more so, recalls her mother dreaming about owning a house with a full staircase inside, like on TV, and no landlord or problems. The new house on Mango Street is nothing like the house her mother described, but still it is her new home, despite the cracked paint and crumbling bricks, and she hopes it will be better than the house on Loomis Street.