The House on Mango Street figurative language

Figurative language

1. The House on Mango Street
http://www.slideshare.net/diannekrause/mango-street-language-presentation-651891

2. “A red balloon tied to an anchor.” (Cisneros 9)
“Her house is like cat heaven.” (Cisneros 13)
“It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths
all over the dusty furniture.” (Cisneros 20)
“Our house with its feet tucked under like a cat.”
(Cisneros 22)
“And nobody looked up not once the day Angel
Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky
like a sugar donut … and exploded down to
earth without even an “Oh”” (Cisneros 33)

3. “A red balloon tied to an anchor.”
(Cisneros 9)
It means she feels that she is trapped and
can’t get away until the wind blows her
free, or someone (she mentions a best
friend) lets her go.
This quote reminds us of the 1956 classic
“The Red Balloon”, in which a boy
befriends a free-thinking red balloon,
who is looking for a friend as well.

4. “Her house is like cat heaven.” (Cisneros 13)
Maybe she is shy, but at the same time, caring,
which contributes to the idea of otherness. This
could be a reason that she has so many cats at
her house. She takes very good care of her cats,
which leads Esperanza to call it Cat Heaven.
Stefan’s Grandmother’s friend is rumored to
have many cats, possibly more than twenty, at
her house/barn, because she has a connection
to them, just like Cathy.

5. “It’s like all of a sudden he let go a million moths
all over the dusty furniture.” (Cisneros 20)
This is her description of when the music box starts
playing. She describes the sound as sudden and
rather loud. It is so sudden because she thought it
would be a different music box, like the ones she
describes with ballerinas.
This had a negative connotation, we wouldn’t want
to listen to something that sounds like a bunch of
moths.

6. “Our house with its feet tucked under it like a
cat.” (Cisneros 22)
This is probably alluding to the fact that their
house is like a cat, with its compactness and
size. It seems not as elegant, almost shy, like a
cat, compared to the other houses.
The image makes us feel as if the house is a
miniature version of another house.

7. “And nobody looked up not once the day Angel
Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky
like a sugar donut … and exploded down to earth
without even an “Oh”” (Cisneros 33)
This is a hyperbole of a situation that would
happen if one of Rosa Vargas’s kids would learn to
fly and fell, because their disregard for rules and
common sense has caused people to stop caring
when they injure themselves in an accident.
Our reaction to this quote is to question
why Cisneros would describe the action
of falling as like a sugar donut.

8. •“And nobody looked up not once the day Angel
Vargas learned to fly and dropped from the sky like
a sugar donut … and exploded down to earth
without even an “Oh”” (Cisneros 33)
This is a hyperbole of a situation that would happen
if one of Rosa Vargas’s kids would learn to fly and
fell, because their disregard for rules and common
sense has caused people to stop caring when they
injure themselves in an accident.
Our reaction to this quote is to question
why Cisneros would describe the action
of falling as like a sugar donut.

9. Why does Cisneros use these specific
metaphors and descriptive language?
It serves as a means to enhance the story
that the readers are reading and to keep
them interested
 Does Sandra Cisneros excessively use
figurative language? Why or why not?

10. Why does Cisneros use these specific
metaphors and descriptive language?
It serves as a means to enhance the story
that the readers are reading and to keep
them interested
 Does Sandra Cisneros excessively use
figurative language? Why or why not?