Construction Of Ideal Space

Sandra Cisneros, as one of the famous female Mexican American writers in the20th century, occupies an important place in American literature. Her full-length novel The House on Mango Street was published in1984which has gained enough popularity after its publication. This also made Cisneros come into the view of literary critics and ordinary readers. The novel is widely regarded as Cisneros’masterpiece and its success helps establish her status in American literature.This thesis mainly adopts spatial criticism and close textual analysis to explore marginalization, oppression and confinement which the Mexican Americans are confronted within social space, familial space and psychological space. Physical confinement and psychological oppression arouse the protagonist Esperanza’s awakening, i.e., leave Mango Street and construct an ideal space for herself and her ethnic group. In that ideal space, they will be free and independent, both physically and psychologically.This thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One serves as an introduction part which introduces Cisneros’s life, her literary career, and works. Besides, it contains a detailed literature review on The House on Mango Street at home and abroad. A summary of spatial criticism put forward by Henry Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, Edward W. Soja, Mike Crang and Phillip E. Wegner as representatives will be included as well. This part provides theoretical foundation for the detailed analysis of The House on Mango Street and also states the feasibility in reading this novel from the perspective of space. Chapter Two analyzes the Mexican Americans’dilemma and identity crisis in social space. As a group of social wanderers, they are marginalized by strict segregation and entrapped in their own living community; they are eager to blend into mainstream society. Chapter Three discusses some female characters’ plight in their familial space: they are confined, enslaved and even imprisoned between father’s familial dominant control and husband’s repression. Chapter Four explores the protagonist’s awakening in psychological space and her awareness to construct an ideal space in mainstream society for herself and other Mexican Americans by the means of writing. Chapter Five is the conclusion which includes findings and limitations of study. This thesis finds that in The House on Mango Street, the relationship between space and power is complicated. Mexican Americans’plight mirrors spatial power exerting its influence in different spaces. For Mexican Americans, construction of ideal space is out of a desire for self-identity and self-development infinitely. Meanwhile, interpreting the novel from the perspective of spatial criticism can explore Cisneros’s unique writing intention and her intense social sense of finding a way out for Chicanas.