The Symbolism of Rats/Mice in "The House on Mango Street"

     "The House on Mango Street" is a novel by Sandra Cisneros following Esperanza, a girl growing up in a Latino part of Chicago. In "The House on Mango Street," a certain symbol has popped up multiple times. This symbol would be rats and mice. After looking through the book, I have come to the conclusion that rats and mice symbolize misjudgments.

     he first mention of rats in "The House on Mango Street" is on page 12, where Cathy the "Queen of Cats" is telling Esperanza about the neighborhood and says "Two girls raggedy as rats live across the street. You don;t want to know them." This sticks with the theme of misjudgments because Cathy told Esperanza something that Esperanza would later disprove (as Rachel and Lucy end up being Esperanza's best friends. Cathy's misjudgment is disregarded later in the story though.

     Another mention of mice is on page 95, when the children are in a garden. "Things had a way of disappearing in the garden, as if the garden itself ate them, or, as if with its old-man memory, it put them away and forgot about them. Nenny found a dollar and a dead mouse between two rocks in the stone wall where the morning glories climbed..." Here, Nenny finds one of the rodents in question in a garden full of mystery. The once frightening garden turns into a place full of wonder, again proving the misjudgment aspect of this symbol.

     Both of these point to the nature of rats and mice in Sandra Cisneros' "The House on Mango Street." when rats and mice are brought into play in the book, so is a sense of mystery, or misjudgments. Symbols are a big part of Cisneros' writing in this book, and she pulls it off quite well.