A House On Mango Street+A Pair Of Tickets

 

Stories give you an insight into an author's life and culture. "The House On Mango Street," by Sandra Cisneros and Amy Tan's "A Pair of Tickets," are both stories where the authors backgrounds influence the story. Sandra Cisneros is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who gained her master's degree from the University of Iowa. In her story, she writes about a young girl who's family of six gets a rundown home on Mango street and vows one day that she will be in a better one. It is not a coincidence that Sandra Cisneros would write a short story about a large family and young girl wanting to do better in life, when Cisneros herself is from a family of seven, grew up in Chicago, and is now a successful writer. Once I was done reading about Sandra Cisneros' background, it feels as if it is her and not the narrator thinking, "I knew I had to have a house, a real house.  One that I could point to," after finding out the home that she is moving into is not the one in her dreams.

Amy Tan is an American author who visited her parent's homeland, China as a young child with her mother. Her story, "A Pair Of Tickets" is about a 36 year old woman who visits China with her father and is anxious to meet her half twin sisters but nervous about telling them of her mother's death. Like Amy Tan, Jing-mei the main character and narrator of the story is an American with Chinese parents. I can hear the author's voice when Jing-mei visits and is shocked of how "communist china" has "color TV, and Cadbury chocolate bars". You can tell Amy Tan's experience when she went to China for the first time as a girl affects the way she writes of how Jing-mei thinks about China.