Literary Analysis 2

1. Briefly summarize the plot of the novel you read.
-"The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros is about a young girls life. The young girl in this novel is named Esperanza and she explains all the different things that happen around her. She has moved many times and is now living on Mango Street which she explains as the house she never dreamed of living in. She always dreamed of living in a huge white house with trees all around it, a huge yard, it would have "real stairs", three washrooms and a basement. Not only was this her dream home, but also her families. Throughout the novel she explains her different experiences she has living at that house and all the different people she meets.

2. Succinctly describe the theme of the novel. Avoid cliches.
-The theme of this novel is that you may not get what you want, but make the best of what you have.

3. Describe the author's tone. Include three excerpts that illustrate your point(s).
-The author's tone would be disappointment. In the novel, Esperanza is very disappointed of not living in the house she dreamed of. For example when she says, "But the house on Mango Street is not the way they told it at all." she is disappointed that from everything her parents told her and how they explained the house they would be living in wasn't what she expected it to be. Another example is when she explains how she doesn't like her name.  "I would like to baptize myself under a new name," is what she says in explaining how much she's disappointed in inheriting her great-grandmothers name and didn't want to be like her sitting at window all the time. One situation that is another good example of disappointment is when she goes to the fortune-teller. "She comes back and can tell I'm disappointed." which she was because the lady wouldn't tell her if she saw a house in her future.

4. Describe five literary elements/techniques you observed that strengthened your understanding of the theme and/ or your sense of the tone. Include three excerpts that will help your reader understand each one.
-Five literary elements/techniques would be setting, imagery, symbols, description, and the view of the protagonist. Setting helped my understanding of the theme and tone by show how the young girl moving to that house on Mango Street was not what she wanted. Imagery and description helped by how the author explained how the house on Mango Street looked compared to what Esperanza expected her house to look like. This showed a big part of disappointment she had. The protagonist point of view also helped because her view of how everything happened and the different situations she went through, gave a sense of how she felt throughout the novel.