Buildung the House

Is the house on mango street a buildungsroman? I am not really sure. I think it is in the sense that we see her grow up and begin to deal with more adult things in life, for instance her relationships with boys, her father, sally, and her sister. All those relationships do seem to mature and develop along the lines of what a buildungsroman story would imply. But this was not a true story. Not in its validity but in the way the book was represented. It was in pieces. The story was not that linear and was simply a collections of memories. Because of that I do not think it should be considered a buildungsroman. I liked this story, don’t get me wrong. I just do not think it showed enough of her life and experiences in a set order that would illustrate her growth, that a buildungsroman needs to succeed. If the story had a plot, or at least two very similar situations in which something happens and Esperanza responds to the situations in two very different ways depending on her growth, then yes I would say that this was without a doubt a coming of age story of this little girl. But as it is the book focus just as much on Esperanza as it does for the rest of the characters, which in my opinion hinders its ability to be a true buildungsroman. Some may argue that it could be a buildungsroman for one of the other characters. This may be true but the only one I can possibly agree with that being true for would be sally, and even then we do not get to see why sally grew up the way she did and what were her major influences. We came to understand what was going on with her father but we did not get an insight into sally’s mind which is what we would have needed to truly understand her growth.