Who's who on Mango Street
Esperanza's younger sister, whose hair is "slippery."
Who is Nenny?
"The wind whispered secrets through the hallway."
What is personification?
In "My Name," Esperanza says she'd like to rename herself to this, a name more like "the real me."
What is Zeze the X?
The specific word a writer chooses.
What is diction?
Because Esperanza uses "I" and "we," the book is told from this point of view.
What is first person?
Esperanza's two brothers, who won't talk to her or her sister outside the house.
Who are Carlos and Kiki?
"The cafeteria pizza was a rubber tire."
What is a metaphor?
Elenita the fortune teller says she sees this for Esperanza instead of the house Esperanza was hoping for.
What is a home in the heart?
The writer's attitude toward a subject.
What is tone?
She created Esperanza but is not the narrator of the book.
Who is Sandra Cisneros?
She agrees to be Esperanza's friend only until next Tuesday, when her family moves away.
Who is Cathy?
"That sandwich has been in my locker since the dinosaurs."
What is a hyperbole?
Marin dances with this young man, who is later hit by a car. At the hospital, no one even knows his real name.
Who is Geraldo (No Last Name)?
Esperanza's honest, childlike, poetic personality, which stays mostly the same across the whole book.
What is voice?
A short, descriptive piece focused on a moment, person, or place. The book has 44 of them.
What is a vignette?
These two sisters from Texas chip in with Esperanza to buy a five dollar bike.
Who are Rachel and Lucy?
In "Sally," Esperanza says Sally has eyes "like Egypt."
What is a simile?
In "No Speak English," Mamacita cries when her baby boy does this.
What is sing a Pepsi commercial in English?
Everything about how a writer writes, taken together: diction, sentence length, repetition, imagery, and more.
What is style?
Esperanza is thrilled when Louie's cousin gives all the kids rides in a big, shiny Cadillac. Readers may suspect this long before the police show up.
What is that the car is stolen?
A young mother who writes poems on little pieces of paper and shows them to Esperanza, while her husband keeps leaving and coming back.
Who is Minerva?
Esperanza describes the Mango Street house as having windows so small you'd think they were holding their breath.
What is personification?
Alicia tells Esperanza, "Like it or not you are" this.
What is Mango Street?
Esperanza calmly reports that Sally's husband won't let her talk on the phone, yet the reader still feels uneasy. That uneasy feeling is this.
What is mood?
In "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark," Esperanza sees her father do this for the first time after he learns his own father has died. It makes her imagine losing her papa.
What is cry?