Mango Street: Who and What?
This character narrates The House on Mango Street and dreams of a home she can truly call her own.
Who is Esperanza?
In STEAL, these five letters stand for Speech, Thoughts, Effect on Others, Actions, and this final category.
What are Looks?
Between small and cramped, this word has the stronger negative connotation and suggests discomfort or confinement.
What is cramped?
“After the long walk home” is an example of this because it does not contain its own subject-verb pair.
What is a phrase?
In “Those Who Don’t,” Esperanza admits that she can also become afraid in unfamiliar neighborhoods. This suggests that fear can grow from these judgments about people we do not know.
What are stereotypes?
This young woman attends university while also carrying major responsibilities at home.
“Nadia was impatient and stubborn.” This is this type of characterization.
What is direct characterization?
“The hallway swallowed the students when the bell rang.” This figurative device gives a nonhuman object a human or living action.
What is personification?
“Although Esperanza wanted to stay” contains its own subject and verb but cannot stand alone. It is this type of clause.
What is a dependent clause?
Seeing Papa cry helps Esperanza develop more of this ability to understand another person’s feelings and experiences.
What is empathy?
This character encourages Esperanza to continue writing, helping connect creativity with freedom.
Who is Aunt Lupe?
A character is complicated and has several conflicting qualities but does not meaningfully change. These TWO labels describe the character.
What are round and static?
“Esperanza doesn’t really get why the adults act like that.” This sentence uses this style rather than formal academic language.
What is informal style?
In “Ruthie, Edna’s grown daughter, played with the children,” the bold words form this type of phrase because they rename Ruthie.
What is an appositive phrase?
Geraldo’s story develops the idea that people without power, connections, or even a known last name can become almost this to society.
What is invisible / anonymous / overlooked?
In this vignette, Esperanza sees a completely different side of her father after he learns that his own father has died.
+100 Bonus: What does seeing Papa cry help Esperanza understand?
What is “Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark”?
Adults can also be vulnerable and experience deep grief.
A character never says, “I am determined,” but continues studying every night despite exhaustion. This type of characterization requires the reader to infer the trait.
+100 Bonus: Which STEAL category provides the evidence?
What is indirect characterization?
Actions.
Instead of telling one long continuous plot, Cisneros uses short snapshots of people, places, and experiences. These short sections are called this.
+100: What is one effect of the vignette structure?
What are vignettes?
The snapshots gradually develop Esperanza, the neighborhood, characters, and recurring ideas.
In “Reading late at night helps Alicia succeed,” the bold gerund phrase performs this sentence function.
Answer: Direct object.
What is the subject?
+100 Bonus: In “Nenny enjoys naming the clouds,” what sentence function does the gerund phrase perform?
Aunt Lupe’s advice suggests that this activity may become one of Esperanza’s paths toward self-expression and freedom.
+100 Bonus: What future goal of Esperanza’s does this connect to?
What is writing?
Creating an identity/life/home that belongs to her rather than simply accepting the circumstances around her.
One of these characters mainly imagines another person changing her future, while the other actively pursues education as a path toward a different future. Name BOTH.
+200 Bonus: Which STEAL category most strongly characterizes Alicia through her decision to continue university?
Who are Marin and Alicia?
Actions.
Cisneros shows the Vargas children constantly causing trouble while the people around them become frustrated, exhausted, and eventually less willing to intervene. Which part of the STEAL method is Cisneros using most strongly to characterize the Vargas family?
+200 Bonus: What can the neighborhood’s changing reaction to the Vargas children help the reader infer about the family’s situation?
What is Effect on Others?
Their behavior has overwhelmed the people around them, and the family has become increasingly isolated or neglected; the neighborhood has grown so accustomed to the chaos that people are less likely to step in.
In “The First Job,” an ordinary work experience suddenly shifts into an uncomfortable encounter. The sudden event does this to the pacing.
+200 Bonus: Why might an author instead slow the pacing by describing a character’s face, silence, or posture?
What is speeds it up / makes it more abrupt and tense?
To emphasize characterization and make readers focus closely on the moment.
In “Hoping to make a friend, Esperanza smiled because the girls waved,” the opening words form this type of phrase.
+200 Bonus: Identify “because the girls waved.”
+100 Bonus: Identify the subject and the verb in the preceding sentence.
What is a participial phrase?
A dependent clause.
subject = girls; verb = waved.
Ruthie is a grown woman who notices beauty and enjoys being with children, yet struggles with ordinary adult independence. Her characterization complicates the idea that becoming an adult automatically brings this.
+200 Bonus: Is Ruthie simply a “childish adult,” or does Cisneros present something more complicated?
What is freedom / independence?
More complicated; her childlike imagination exists alongside real limitations and difficulties functioning independently.