Study questions for these vignettes:
Study Questions – Choose 1 from each vignette to answer thoroughly. You must cite specific
evidence from the text to support and justify your answers, along with your opinion. Your answer needs to
be only a paragraph (6-8 sentences) in length. SUBMIT.
"The House on Mango Street"
1. What is the tone of the first paragraph on pg. 3?
2. Esperanza is the narrator of this story. What is her attitude toward the Mango St. house?
3. What is the tone at the end of the second paragraph?
4. Why does the family have to tell everyone when they take a bath?
5. What is the dream house that Esperanza describes on pg. 4, and what does it show about her?
6. Why does Esperanza disapprove of the house on Mango Street?
7. Why does Esperanza want a real house?
8. What do we know about the narrator and her family by the end of this chapter?
“Hairs"
1. Why is Esperanza's description of the "broom" funny?
2. In what ways does Esperanza's mother influence her?
3. Why does Esperanza focus on hair?
4. What picture do we get about each person simply by a description of his or her hair?
5. What is the effect of connecting the snoring, the rain and Mama's hair?
6. Esperanza describes her mother's hair as being "like little candy circles all curly and pretty." What
does this metaphor, and those in the next paragraph, suggest about Esperanza's feelings for her
mother?
"Boys and Girls"
1. How does the difference between the boys' and girls' behavior affect Esperanza?
2. What is the tone as she describes the boys' behavior?
3. How does Esperanza regard her responsibility as an older sister?
4. Esperanza describes herself as "a balloon tied to an anchor." What are the connotations of this
metaphor, and what does it tell you about Esperanza?
"My Name"
1. Why does her name remind her of the songs her father plays on Sunday mornings?
2. What is Esperanza's perception of the role of women in her family?
3. Why does Cisneros wait until the fourth vignette in the novel to give us the name of the narrator?
4. What do we know about Esperanza from her reaction to the story about her great-grandmother?
5. What is the difference between tin and silver?
6. Why does she want a different name, and what is the significance of the name she chooses?
"Cathy Queen of Cats"
1. What is Cathy's significance to the story?
2. Cathy is a running commentator on life in the neighborhood. What do we learn about her from
this?
3. What, according to Esperanza, is the reason Cathy's family is moving north of Mango Street?
4. Does Esperanza believe Cathy about her father flying to France? Why or why not?
5. What does Esperanza think about Cathy's family "moving a little farther north from Mango St.
every time people like us keep moving in"?
"Our Good Day"
1. Why does Rachel say that she will be Esperanza's friend for five dollars and why does Esperanza
agree to do it?
2. What is the significance of the names in this chapter that Esperanza wishes she had?
3. Why is it funny when Rachel says "You've got quite a load there, too" and what does her
comment tell us about her?
"Laughter"
1. What is the effect of the phrase, "popsicle lips" that Esperanza uses to describe Rachel and
Lucy?
2. Why is the laughter of Esperanza and her friends "like a pile of dishes breaking"?
"Gil's Furniture Bought and Sold"
1. Why does Cisneros open this chapter with a detailed listing of the contents of the junk store?
2. Why does the music seem to “let go a million moths all over the dusty furniture and swan-neck
shadows and in our bones”?
"Meme Ortiz"
1. What is your impression of Meme Ortiz and his dog?
2. Why does his dog have two names, one in English and one in Spanish?
3. What is the importance of the tree in the backyard?
4. What does it show about the neighborhood children that they have a Tarzan Jumping Contest?
"Louie, His Cousin and His Other Cousin"
1. Why does Cisneros describe Louie as someone whose "t-shirts never stay tucked in his pants"?
2. What does Esperanza think of Marin?
3. What is the significance of the song on pg. 24?
4. Why do the neighborhood children all wave at Louie's cousin as the police drive by with him in the
back seat?
"Marin"
1. What are Marin's values?
2. In what ways is Marin older than the other girls?
3. Why is Marin not afraid?
4. What are Esperanza's perceptions of Marin?
"Those Who Don't"
1. How do outsiders perceive Esperanza's neighborhood?
2. Why aren't Esperanza and the others afraid?
3. What happens when they go to another neighborhood?
"There Was an Old Woman"
1. This chapter tells the tragedy of Angel Vargas, but Cisneros writes it as though it is a fantasy.
Why does she choose this technique?
2. What is Esperanza's opinion of the Vargas family?
"Alicia Who Sees Mice"
1. Why does Alicia’s father ignore her comments about the mice?
Why is Alicia "afraid of nothing except four-legged fur? And fathers."?
