SOURCE: Brunk, Beth L. “En Otras Voces: Multiple Voices in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street.” Hispanofila 133 (September 2001): 137-50.

In the following essay, Brunk asserts that Cisneros's construction of a multiple and shifting narrative point-of-view in The House on Mango Street works to reveal the social realities of the urban, poor, Latin-American community in which the protagonist grows up.

In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros creates a narrator, twelve-year-old Mexican-American Esperanza Cordero, who is fluent in a variety of voices. In this series of vignettes, Cisneros creates variations between an adolescent and a mature voice, between limited points of view and omniscience, and between a speaking voice and a writing voice. The fluidity of the narrative and the relationships created between the opposing voices make The House on Mango Street successful in detailing the people, places, and activities of Mango Street and Esperanza's life while...