Introduction to Literature II: NOVEL ANALYSIS

House on Mango Street

Chapter 25

Esperanza is in the kitchen of Elenita, "witch woman". Elenita's house is full of little kids, holy candles, and voodoo posters.
Elenita has Esperanza pour a glass of water and asks if she sees anyone's face in the glass – Esperanza sees nothing but bubbles.
Elenita begins to tell Esperanza's fortune with a stack of strange cards with pictures on them. She also examines Esperanza's palm.
Esperanza asks Elenita what she really wants to know – does the fortune teller see anything about a house? Elenita says that she sees "a home in the heart".
Esperanza is disappointed. She doesn't understand what "a home in the heart" means.
She pays Elenita five dollars and goes home.

Chapter 26

Marin meets a young, good-looking man named Geraldo at one of the dances she goes to frequently. She's the last person to see him alive.
Geraldo dies in a hit-and-run, and he doesn't have any I.D. on him.
Marin tells the people at the hospital and the police what she knows – that his name is Geraldo, and he worked in a restaurant. She spends hours in the emergency room trying to help, even though she barely knows the guy.
Marin seems to be the only person to care about Geraldo's death. The surgeon doesn't even bother to come to the emergency room to save his life.
No one knows about the tiny kitchenettes where Geraldo worked so he could send money home to his family. His family, the narrator speculates, will wonder what happened to him.

Chapter 27

Meet Ruthie. She's quirky, wears weird clothes, laughs by herself, and likes to play, even though she's a grown-up.
Ruthie is Edna's daughter. Edna is the cranky landlady of the apartment complex next door to Esperanza's house.
Ruthie seems to have a fear of enclosed spaces – she doesn't like to go into stores with the kids, and if she does, she "keeps looking around her like a wild animal in a house for the first time" (26.4).
Ruthie often blurts out non sequitur statements. In the middle of one of Esperanza's jokes, for example, she might comment on the moon or some clouds.
One day some of Edna's friends ask Ruthie to go play bingo. Ruthie stands on the front steps, paralyzed by indecision. Eventually the car leaves without her.
When Ruthie was young, she had lots of job offers, but she got married instead and moved to the suburbs. Esperanza can't understand why Ruthie is living on Mango Street in her mother's living room when she has a husband and a real house of her own. Ruthie always says she's just visiting, and that next weekend her husband is going to come and take her home. He never does.
Ruthie tells Esperanza that she used to write children's books.
Esperanza memorizes the poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and recites it for Ruthie. When she finishes, Ruthie says: "You have the most beautiful teeth I have ever seen," and goes inside.

Chapter 28

Earl lives next door to Esperanza in Edna's basement apartment. The neighborhood kids like to sit on the steps outside his apartment.
Earl keeps his blinds down during the day and works nights. The only time the kids see him is when he comes and goes to work, or when he comes outside to tell them to be quiet.
Earl is a jukebox repairman from the South.
Rumor has is that Earl is married and has a wife somewhere. Edna, Esperanza's mother, and the neighborhood kids all claim to have seen her, but they disagree as to what she looks like. Sounds to us like he's bringing home more than one woman…
The kids do agree that whenever he brings a woman to his apartment, they walk quickly inside, lock the door, and never stay long.

Chapter 29

A boy named Sire stares at Esperanza every time she passes his house. He makes Esperanza feel all funny inside.
Papa calls Sire a punk, and Mama says not to talk to him.
Sire has a girlfriend named Lois. Esperanza admires her tiny, painted toenails and feminine hands and makeup. But she notices that Lois doesn't know how to tie her shoes.
Esperanza watches Sire and Lois together and wonders about what they do together. Mama says "those kinds of girls […] are the ones that go into alleys".
Esperanza feels like "everything is waiting to explode like Christmas". She wants to sit out with boys and know what it's like to be held and kissed.

Chapter 30

Four skinny trees stand outside Esperanza and Nenny's bedroom. Esperanza says that they are the only things that understand her, and she is the only one that understands them. Nenny definitely doesn't understand while Esperanza communes with the trees from the window, Nenny just sleeps.
The trees are kind of like Esperanza – they're skinny with pointy elbows. They don't belong here, but they're here. They have a secret strength.
There are four trees, and when one sags, they all droop with their arms around one another. Does this sound like anyone we know? What about Esperanza and her three close friends?
The trees teach, Esperanza says. They say: "Keep, keep, keep" (29.3).
Whenever Esperanza feels discouraged, she looks at the four trees, "who grew despite concrete".