Lierary Response House on Mango Street
The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Concerns, the vignette titled, “There was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What to Do”, may seem insignificant at first when Concerns begins to with a lot of troubled children, a common scenario In neighborhoods such as Mango Street.
Then as we delve deeper Into the passage, we begin to realize that the mother, Rosa Barras, Is neglectful, which may not be her fault; she Is troubled with the amount of children she has and plagued with the ruder of sadness that her husband left her with all of these children, alone and with no money to aid her. These children are starving for attention and by practically railing themselves. At first, members of the community attempt to help with their upbringing but eventually, because of the lack of results, the people become tired of trying and stop caring.
They don’t care when the children hurt themselves, even when Angel Barras falls from a great height and dies, “… And nobody looked up not once the day Angel Barras learned to fly and dropped from the sky like a sugar donuts, gust like a falling star, and exploded down to earth without even an Oh”. Concerns seems to be playing off the old African saying, “It takes a village to raise a child”. This vignette is included to bear the question, who is to blame for Angel’s death?
Himself, because he behaved recklessly; his absent father, whose departure no doubt contributed to his lack of respect “for all things living, including [himself]”; his mother, who was not watching him but who at the same time was unable to do so effectively; or his neighbors, for not caring for or about his actions? Concerns chooses to include Rosa Barras in this vignette. Rosa also represents the challenges faced by single mothers.
She has more children than she can count and is plagued with despair after her husband leaves her without a penny to help take care of all of her children or even a reason explaining why he left. She is troubled with all of these children and it is too many for her to keep her eye on. By the end of the vignette we can infer she has lost her son and now not only does she have to deal with the absence of her husband but now the loss of her son.
