Coming-of-Age

What does it mean?!

A coming-of-age story or novel is memorable because the character undergoes adventures and/or inner turmoil in his/her growth and development as a human being.

How so?

Some characters come to grips with the reality of cruelty in the world--with war, violence, death, racism, and hatred--while others deal with family, friends, or community issues.

What else?

Many coming-of-age stories demonstrate the importance of a mentor, a person who is older and/or more experienced. The main character generally goes to their mentor for help or advice.

So what?

Coming-of-age isn’t just something that happens in books or movies. It happens in real life. Many cultures have ceremonies or events that mark when a person is no longer a child.

Rites of Passage

This relates to English class how?

Who’s the author?• Sandra Cisneros was born in the

Hispanic Quarter of Chicago in 1954.

• Mexican-American (Chicana).• She was the only girl in a family

of seven, and grew up in poverty.

• Her parents emphasized education.

• Her family moved often; she was shy and introverted, but connected with her community privately through writing.

Who’s the author? (continued)

• Attended Loyola University in Chicago as an English major.

• Decided to become a writer.• Attended the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, a

graduate school for young writers.• Was afraid her unprivileged background

would put her at a disadvantage in the literary world.

• However, her heritage gave her the unique voice that shaped her career.

Other books:Bad Boys, Mango Press: San Jose, California, 1980

The House on Mango Street, (Arte Publico Press: Houston, Texas, l984), Vintage: New York, 1991.

Woman Hollering Creek, Random House: New York, 1991

My Wicked Wicked Ways, (Third Woman Press: Berkeley, California, l987), Random House: New York, 1992

La Casa En Mango Street,

translated by Elena Poniatowska, Vintage Español, New York, 1994.

Loose Woman, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1994.

Hairs/Pelitos, Alfred A. Knopf: New York, 1994. Spanish translation by Liliana Valenzuela.

Caramelo, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2002. Spanish edition translated by Liliana Valenzuela.

Vintage Cisneros, Vintage, New York, 2004.

About our book: (The Narrator)• The work is narrated by Esperanza Cordero, a Chicana girl in

Chicago.• She is about 13 years old.• Although told in the voice of a young girl, it addresses mature

subject matter.• In Spanish, Esperanza means hope, and also, waiting. • This choice of name is significant in the novel: the character

and her independence represent a way out of the slums. • As she watches her neighborhood,

she decides that she will not become like the women she knows, trapped and powerless in a man’s world.

•Mango Street symbolizes both Esperanza’s ball and chain and her inspiration.•In the beginning of the novel, she is disappointed with the house on Mango Street.•She finds that she is not like the other residents of Mango, that she can and will find the strength to leave her life there. •She realizes that Mango is a part of her, and where she comes from is as important as where she’s going. •She knows she must come back, to help the others who are trapped there. •Cisneros’s writing is very imaginative. She makes unexpected comparisons between things to give connotations to what she describes.

About our book: (The Setting)

• The novel is told as a series of vignettes, 1-4 pages each

• Vignettes are brief, but vivid, descriptions, accounts, or episodes.

• There is no real chronological plot, but a series of insights into Esperanza’s thoughts and feelings.

• The vignettes show the trends in behavior in the community and provide a contrast between strength and weakness, between freedom and bondage.

• The novel is dedicated “A Las Mujeres”, which means“To the Women” in Spanish.

About our book: (The Structure)

• Alicia, the medical student who is still bound to her old fears.

• Marin, who waits.• Beautiful Rafaela, the modern-day

Rapunzel.• Rosa Vargas, with too many children,

crying for the husband who left.• Mamacita, who dreams of the pink house

she left behind and refuses to speak English.

• Sally, the subject of abuse until she marries, to escape, before eighth grade, and moves from Mango Street into into another sort of trap.

• And then there is Esperanza, who is like the skinny trees outside her tiny window, who longs for a house all her own, who starts her own quiet war.

About our book: (The Characters)

•This is Cisneros’s first novel.

•It is a way to relate her cultural identity to her life and the lives of others.

•Cisneros seeks to break the cycle of defeats that women suffered due to social and religious stereotypes.

•Esperanza is an outlet for the author’s views on the perceptions of women in her environment.

About our book: (The Significance)