Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The House on Mango Street, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Language and Names
Gender and Sexuality
Foreigness and Society
Identity and Autonomy
Dreams and Beauty
Summary
Analysis
The chapter is mostly Marin answering questions from the police. At a dance that night she had met a young man named Geraldo, and they danced together. After he left, Geraldo was killed in a hit-and-run car accident. He spoke no English, and he died because only an intern was working in the emergency room that night, and no surgeon came to tend to him. Marin emphasizes how she didn’t know anything about Geraldo, not even his last name.
This chapter offers more social criticism of the prejudice against Chicanos, as Geraldo is constantly emphasized as a “nobody,” not good enough to even be treated by a doctor when badly injured. In narrating the section, Esperanza emphasizes Geraldo’s lack of English in affecting his fate, which shows that she is learning the powerlessness of lacking language.
Themes
Esperanza muses about Geraldo, who to the police and doctors was “just another wetback.” She imagines his life of shabby apartments and jobs, and how he left his home, and how his family back in Mexico will never know what happened to him.
Esperanza again shows that she is growing in her ability to empathize with others, and also that she now understands some of the racial prejudice she must overcome.
Themes
