The House on Mango Street & My First Kill

The two stories "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros and "My First Kill" by Art Coelho are each personal narratives, written in the first-person and telling of some event of importance to the author. The narrators in each case are young people experiencing a revelation in their lives

In the stories of Sandra Cisneros, themes, characters, images, and symbols recur from one story to the next. Her characters are close to the earth in many ways, living sensuous lives that link them to nature, to the progression of time in history, to centuries of human development, and to the aspirations of a people. Her stories are often narrated by a woman who observes the world from her female point of view, but that point of view is linked in different ways to central issues of history and the development of Mexican culture. This is true in "The House on Mango Street" in a somewhat different way in that the young girl represents the aspirations of her people as she realizes how little they have now and how much she wants to be like other people.

Cisneros and her narrator are urban in orientation, at least in this story, while Coelho writes from a rural perspective. The girl in Cisneros's story and the boy in Coelho's story each experience a new understanding as they grow up, and this understanding will change their outlook after this.

The language in each case is simple and direct, but it is also expressive and brings out the nature of each character and his or her view o

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The House on Mango Street .... Those boys said leave us alone. I felt stupid with my brick. .... Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage, 1984. (1023 4 )

The Transition to Adulthood in Literature .... and his back stiff, as if he'd just had an injection of iron, and my stomach kind of .... Esperanza lives with her family in their house on Mango Street, a house .... (851 3 )

Sandra Cisneros .... of the American Dream, but the house they move into on Mango Street is in .... it will allow her to pursue her creative dream: "A house all my .... books and my stories. .... (1474 6 )

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Race Relations Since 1945 .... Oct. 16, 1996, (110) 1-2. Baldwin, J. Nobody Knows My Name: More Notes Of A Native Son. New York, Dell, 1961. Cisneros, S. The House On Mango Street. .... (1979 8 )

how those things go (Cisneros 224). In making this statement, the girl shows wisdom beyond her years and shows that her experience has given her knowledge about the way the world works that leaves her suspicious and doubtful about ever achieving her dreams. The house itself becomes a symbol in this story, a symbol of change, of success, of achieving the American dream, as seen on television. The tone is that of memory, in this case a memory that involves disappointment and a realization about the way the world works. The point of view is that of the young girl, and the setting is urban, as noted. In the story by Coelho, the point of view is that of a young male, and the setting is rural. The boy is twelve when the story opens, and he is also remembering the day when he left the shop at Wheatville farm with his new gun and a pocket full of shells. This is a young man who feels the need to please his father and to live up to the image the father has of what the son should be: "Later I'd have to look straight into his eyes and measure up to everything that happened during the hunt" (Coelho 230). The boy feels a sense of responsibility and links it to age--he is growing up and is ready to put aside childish things. He has shot

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