Female Role Models In Mango Street

Esperanza is the ideal example of impotent female 's and their gender role in human society in the days before the Chicano Movement. Throughout the book, we come to read about vulnerable females that never had the chance to become someone of great importance or value. Esperanza wants to break that cycle and vouches to one day leave the neighborhood that deprived her of so many things that little girls her age only dream of. Esperanza goes through the troubles and tribulations of living in the barrio, surrounded by poverty, teen mom 's and the shattered dreams of females before the Chicano Movement of the 1960s. A movement were a large number of women gained power by finding their voice and speaking out.

It is undoubtedly due to the ultimate sacrifice of cynicism she forfeited in exchange for a chance at companionship and contentedness, which she failed at in almost every social circumstance. This is not because of her animosity or lack of enough wits to always entertain her friends, but simply her naivety and gullibility. It is important to note that this expression of total trust in her friends is a conscious action of Esperanza. Over and over again, she is faced with circumstances that cause her to lose trust in the friends she made throughout the novel. This sacrifice of cynicism shows that Esperanza values believing in an artificial or “fake” friend more so than she wants to be alone, even if she knows she will eventually get hurt just like the last

(Wissman) Throughout the novella, Esperanza fights against a society filled with toxic masculinity and women that find their worth through men, for self-awareness, and eventually finds it through the lessons she learns from these situations and people. As the Explorer, she used the characters that fulfilled other archetypes to build herself into a strong-willed young lady. Though the archetypes Cisneros used in The House on Mango Street, specifically in the female characters, Esperanza learns valuable lessons that construct a newly liberated woman.

The women that surround her are silent, and many of them cannot leave the house. She watches girls have children and marry just to escape their home because that is the only thing they know in life. Esperanza already knows she wants to be more than what is expected of her as a poor, Latina girl, and will fight the expectations placed on her in the subtlest of ways. “I have begun my own quiet war. Simple.

The main protagonist Esperanza, matures from a childish girl to a young confident woman through many critical and life changing events in the story. Ultimately, the author, Sandra Cisneros implements the symbols of confidence, the house on mango street and the metaphor of shoes to show how Esperanza develops into a more mature state. Sandra Cisneros

Because Esperanza’s achievements aren’t at top of the priority list for her family, Esperanza does not have to do much which reflects her life in the future. Not only are low expectations about achieving great things, but are also about the way people dress. Esperanza’s neighborhood consists of kids whose “clothes are crooked and old” (Cisneros 14). Notably, Esperanza is not expected to dress up fancy whereas if she goes to another neighborhood, their clothing and physical appearance are given a lot of attention. From these examples, one can see that when Esperanza goes into other neighborhoods or grows older and

She wants to overcome her childish tendencies and transition into womanhood. When Esperanza sees Sire’s girlfriend her interest in Sire and his relationship increases. She even begins to imagine what it would feel like to have a boyfriend. “I want to sit bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt” (73). This represents the arrival of puberty, which is demonstrated by Esperanza’s desire to behave in a grown-up way.

In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.

Interestingly, she seems to lose this confidence when speaking to adults outside of her immediate family. Perhaps this points to some traumatic incident with a stranger? But I digress. Esperanza pesters her mother for three days, asking for a note to eat in the canteen. She tells her mother “You will see me less, and like me more.”

These problems coming to light through the many women Esperanza looks up to, drive her to rise above her obstacles, and become more than just another poorly treated woman. Despite the variety of girls in the neighborhood, one of Esperanza’s closest friends ends up being Sally, who has moved from one abusive home to the next. Sally’s father was a very strict man and she constantly disobeyed him once out of his sight. Whenever Sally is caught dressing “provocative” or acting “too old” her father decides to teach her a lesson.

The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.

The House on Mango Street is a touching and timeless tale told in short vignettes. It tells the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago. Her life, and the lives of the people around her, are laid bare to the readers in this touching novella. In the beginning, Esperanza is not accepting of herself. Her family’s poor financial situation, the sadness of the people around her, and the problems she faces in her daily life make her very cynical.

Esperanza acquires a sense of who she is as a young woman. These characters aid in her decided stance on gender roles and how she wants to evade them as she starts to build her own life. Through Esperanza’s narration, the darkness that correlates with the roles of women is brought into light. The gender roles found in the book are still issues today. Such ideas ruin much of society because people have yet to question and altar them.

Esperanza finds out that she needs to become promiscuous in order to be popular like Sally and she’s not comfortable with that idea. Later on Sally and Esperanza go to the carnival, Sally leaves her alone to go with a boy. Esperanza is now by herself vulnerable and ends up getting raped. She realizes that boys are not what she thought they were, so she decides to focus on herself. Esperanza changes what she thought she wanted for the future.

In House On Mango Street, Esperanza is surrounded by many characters. Her family, her friends, and the other residents of Mango Street (and beyond). She learns a little bit about life from each of them and she matures quickly in this new neighborhood. The majority of lessons she learns aren’t from her mother or father, or really anybody in her family, she learns her most valuable lessons from people she meets in Mango Street.