Esperanza tries to wear high heels like a woman, tries to have a boyfriend like an older woman, and she tries to get a job like an adult. Esperanza’s longing to grow up quickly causes her to confront the reality of being an adult. Although Esperanza desperately wants to be an adult, she is not prepared for the responsibilities that accompany adulthood; she is unable to successfully make the transition
Esperanza is learning from the mistakes that Sally has made in her life. Esperanza fells sad for Sally, she always looked up to her, but now Sally is slowly rotting away. Even though Sally is made mistakes in her childhood Esperanza is taking in the things she should not be doing. She knows about how boys will try and talk to you because of “Hips” or your “Looks” Esperanza has learned from her friends mistakes. She is slowly maturing into a young
She expected it to be big and lavish but it turned out to be smaller and old. She was too quick to assume everything would be better just because her family got more money. Esperanza should’ve been happy she even got a better house. Her former living situation was a horrible and she should have been more appreciative of the major upgrade she got. “You live there?...
Also, since Esperanza feel as though she is grown up, she starts making decision on her own, and she starts having these urges/feelings. Like what it would be like to have a boyfriend and etc. So one day Esperanza goes to a carnival with Sally and while there they run into some boys.Sally left with one boy and left esperanza with the rest. And while sally was gone. The rest of the boys forcefully kissed and raped esperanza.And when she saw sally again she broke down and said “ Sally, you lied, it wasn’t what you said at all….”[Cisneros 99].Esperanza was forced into having sex and when she finds sally she loses composure and let’s all her feelings out.
This is a pivotal point for Esperanza. She asks “who’s going to do it?” (107), and realizes that it will be her responsibility. She will leave Mango Street, but she will have to return in order to make it better because nobody else will. Life on Mango Street has impacted Esperanza immensely, even in the short year that she had lived there. Esperanza realized that writing would be her way of escaping from both Mango Street and the prevalent patriarchal society.
These experiences have an impact on her, creating new emotions and new adult like perspectives she has never faced before. Esperanza’s environment shifts her identity from being an insecure child to a confident, mature young adult who realizes the decisions that adults must make. Esperanza’s response to her environment reveals an insecurity about herself early in the story. In one of Esperanza’s experiences, she finds herself ashamed
Esperanza’s family is poor, but they are good at supporting each other’s problems and feelings. The role of Esperanza’s family is being annoying, yet supportive to her. She refuses that she doesn’t belong in that family, even though she deeply knows she does and loves them for it. Esperanza thinks her parents have too much hope, hates going to her Aunt’s apartment, her great-grandmother is a good kind of wild, her brothers are immature because of the whole “cooties” rule, and that she is a balloon tied to anchor when being with Nenny. Esperanza thinks Nenny is a drag because on page three, she says,” Nenny is too young to be my friend.
She also learns that society can pressure people to put a mask on when others are around, and that you can’t truly know the genius of someone by watching the small glimpses of them you see when they around you. Esperanza is a very strongly written character and plays a very good protagonist experiencing life and dealing the harshness of
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.
After losing her father, she then loses her home, and everything she has ever loved. She must start over physically when she and Mama leave everything behind and move to the United States. "Do not be afraid to start over." (p. 15) Abuelita, who is Esperanza’s grandmother, says this to her and later, Esperanza utters these wise words herself. They are both speaking about the process of knitting, which serves as a metaphor for overcoming fears and reaching dreams.