11.24 Mango Street

Drama unit:  I will be reviewing the writing for the drama unit over the break.  If you have questions or difficulties - send me an email.

Mango street: overview of unit
Sandra Cisneros The House on Mango Street is generally characterized as a lyrical novel, which is a sub-genre of novel, and in many ways different from many of the novels you will be reading for your period courses as English majors.   At the same time, you are will familiar with the "moves" most "traditional" novels make - in terms of plot, setting character, and structure - from the short story course.  So, we are using the novel unit 1) to look at reading strategies for lyrical (non-traditional) novel forms, and 2) to work on reading & writing about scholarly literary essays.

Reading Valdes essay on Mango Street.  We spent the first part of class setting up the assignment for next Monday. (Posted to the right, Cisneros Essay).  This essay, written in 1992,  is a feminist  essay which draws from semiotic theory (theories about interactions between texts and readers and the ways meanings are made).  We noticed (and took apart) some of the jargony language.  I have annotated this essay (the headings and bolding were added by me) - as a way to make the overall structure (the moves the author makes) more clear.  The assignment for this unit will be an evaluation or response to what Valdes has written.  We will talk about this more (and identify topics) as we move through the unit.

Discussion of Mango Street.
We began talking about Mango street by putting up just anything that came to mind.  Here are the notes from the board:
protagonist = Mexican girl, adolescent
family = poor
Protagonist hopes for a better life - better house, doesn't want to end up like the adult women she knows
"afraid" of growing up (Monkey Garden, discovers/begins to think about sexuality + gender role
uses poetry - language = symbolic/metaphroic
uses poetry/her way of expressing herself to create herself
identity struggle
my name = personal
different (those who don't)
female identity
child/adult
seual identity
sense of belonging
holding - setting free
using language to gain "safety"

You then worked in groups to notice some of the main themes - and to note sets of chapters the themes wove through.  We only had time for three themes (listed below) - there are more, and as we noted, they are overlapping.  In addition to the themes listed below, we might have noted themes related to growing up, dealing with conflicts (opposites); belonging, female identity, (and others).

Themes
Power of language
The house
Mango says good bye sometimes
My Name
Darius & the Clouds
No Speak English
and?

Poverty
The House
Rice Sandwich
Those who don't
Bums in the attic
and?

Bi-cultural identity
Hairs
My Name
Geraldo no last name
No Speak English

For next class:
Read: Valdes essay
Write: post questions, vocabulary, ideas, observations related to Valdes essay.  Do some writing to figure out what the essay means + how it works.

Have a great Thanksgiving and see you next week.