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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. Why is Minerva black and blue?

2. What is wrong with Mamacita?

3. What does Esperazna like to do?

4. What can’t Esperanza’s mother do despite living in the city all her life?

5. Where does she meet him?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Sally’s relationship like with her parents?

2. Why does her Aunt Lupe tell her that writing will keep her free?

3. How are Esperanza and Minerva similar?

4. How does Sally defy her parents?

5. Why did Marin stay with him in the emergency room?

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

7. Who is Ruthie?

8. Why is Esperanza’s Aunt Lupe an important person to her?

9. What is Esperanza hoping to hear when she has her fortune told?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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?

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

Toward the end of the book, Esperanza says this: "I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate" (Chapter 35, pg. 89). How is this quote indicative of who Esperanza is currently, and who she will become?

(see the answer keys)

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