The House on Mango Street

This is a story about a family and their struggle to "get ahead" in the world. The narrator of the story is the daughter who you believe to be the author Sandra Cisneros. It tells about her life as a young girl growing up without a home. In this story the family has just moved to a new house on Mango Street and they had always wanted a home; someplace to put down their roots. This house however is a shack and a mess she describes the windows as "they where so small you'd think they were holding their breath". through out the story she describes the house they wanted it was white, had three bathrooms, and real stairs not just hallway stairs. I feel that part especially speaks to the dreams and hopes of the underprivileged. I have had a very fortunate life so far and the idea of needing real stairs in my house was something I never even considered. I knew they where going to be there so it is something i have defiantly taken for granted. there is this sense of connection to the story for me as well though. Even though i have grown up much more fortunate then the narrator I have also experienced the pain of moving from town to town. I know how difficult that can be and how important it is to have strong family ties to help you adjust to a new life. 

The most important paragraph in this story is defiantly the conversation between the girl and the nun. The nun asked where she lived and the little girl pointed to her third floor apartment as if to say up there. The nun looked shocked that someone could live in a place like that . The author describes it by saying "You live there? the way she said it made me feel like nothing.  There, I lived there. I nodded." this is a women of god who pledge her life to helping the unfortunate but instead she gaffed at her and made her feel unimportant. I think this conversation speaks to the struggle she had growing up. If her home is such a despair that a nun can't even see the good in it then life must had been difficult.