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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How has Esperanza “begun her own quiet war”?

2. Who listens to Esperanza’s stories?

3. What does Esperanza promise to never forget?

4. Esperanza describes the color of illness as being what?

5. Who does Esperanza compare Rafaela to?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Esperanza feel a special kinship with the trees outside her window?

2. How does Sally defy her parents?

3. Why can’t Esperanza, her mother, and other neighbors and kids agree on what Earl’s “wife” looks like?

4. What does it mean that both Esperanza is getting noticed by boys, and that she notices them watching her?

5. How has Esperanza begun her “own quiet war”?

6. Esperanza wants a nice house and wants to live on a hill, but she believes that she’ll be different than the others who do so. How does she believe that she will be different?

7. How does the phrase “no speak English” take on two meanings at the end of this vignette?

8. Why does Esperanza say she’ll allow “bums in the attic”?

9. Esperanza has her fortune told, and Elenita tells her that she sees a “home in the heart”. What could this mean for Esperanza’s future?

10. How does Esperanza’s perspective affect the information readers are given in this chapter?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Choose one of the characters in the book and examine his/her real life. How does the author represent him/her in the novel? Is this an accurate representation of the character?

Essay Topic 2

In many of the vignettes, Esperanza is spoken down to or mistreated because of how poor her family is and her Hispanic ethnicity. How does she respond to the condescension? Does she understand it is happening? If so, what actions of her are indicative of this?

Essay Topic 3

Cisneros’s Personal Background

a. How do you think Cisneros’s upbringing influenced her content in The House on Mango Street?

b. What specific aspects of Esperanza’s life are reminiscent of Cisneros’s experience?

(see the answer keys)

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