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Chiquita L. Bowleg
COM220 Online
“I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man,
The house on Mango Street is a novel that illustrates the metamorphosis and/or
the coming of age of a thirteen year old girl named Esperanza Cordero (the main
through manipulation integrated with premature sexual experiences. The novel depicts
the inequities between men and women in Latino culture. Through the perils Esperanza
life, she remained optimistic regarding how she envisioned her future,” I am too strong
is only daughter in a family of seven children. Insecurities and loneliness from not having
childhood she would move between Mexico City and Chicago, never allowing her much
time to get settled in any place. In high school she wrote poetry and was the literary
magazine editor, but, according to Cisneros, she did not really start writing until her first
creative writing class in college in 1974. Five years after receiving her MA from the
writing program at the University of Iowa, she returned to Loyola University Chicago,
She has taught at many colleges and universities, including the University of California,
University of Michigan, and the University of New Mexico. Cisneros is also the author of
Woman Hollering Creed and Other Stories and two collections of poetry: My Wicked,
Wicked Ways, and Loose Woman. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
Esperanza is embarrassed by her living conditions, she is also not satisfied with her
physical appearance, which she feels like her outer appearance does not lineup with her inner
person"...small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you'd think they were
holding their breath. Bricks are crumbling in places, and the front door is so swollen you have to
push hard to get in" (4). She is very self-conscious about her name, whose mispronunciation by
teachers and peers at school sounds very ugly to her ears. Esperanza was named after her great-
grandmother, who was tricked into marriage and confined to a life of sadness afterwards a "wild
horse of a woman" who was eventually tamed and trapped into marriage and a life of waiting
(11). Esperanza was mentally determined not end up like the first Esperanza (her grandmother)
and so many women do- watching life pass by through the window. To break free from her name
connotations, she longs to rename herself "Zeze the X," Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or
Cathy becomes Esperanza’s first friend in her new neighborhood. Cathy claims to be
related to the queen of France and hopes to go to France someday to inherit the family house.
Cathy indicates what the neighborhood may have been like in the past, while the two families
that move into her house once she’s left are more representative of the whole neighborhood as
Esperanza comes to experience it. The black man who owns Gil’s furniture is an oddity from the
rest of the neighborhood, different from the people Esperanza sees from day to day. His race
makes him so unfamiliar that Esperanza avoids him and is afraid to talk to him. Meme and his
dog each have two names, a fact that highlights the neighborhood’s two cultures, Latin American
and American, and two languages, Spanish and English, revealing the new cultural makeup of
Mango Street. When Esperanza bikes around the neighborhood with Lucy and Rachel, she
reveals its physical boundaries. She points out her house again as rundown, and the
neighborhood seems no better. Mango Street is near a dangerous busy street, and her house is
still near a laundromat. The laundromat is reminiscent of the laundromat below the apartment in
Esperanza’s former neighborhood. That one was boarded up because it was robbed, and it was a
keen source of embarrassment for Esperanza. That her new house is also near a laundromat
suggests that the move to Mango Street is far from enough to change her circumstances.
Esperanza later slips into puberty and begins to like it when boys watch her dance.
Esperanza's newfound view leads her to become friends with Sally, a girl her age who pursues
attention from the opposite sex to escape from her abusive father. Esperanza is not completely
comfortable with Sally’s sexual abruptness. Their friendship is compromised when Sally
by a group of boys at the carnival. She compares the laughing boys with the red clowns at the
carnival.
Distrust and suspicion when dealing with the opposite sex, "They all lied. All the books
and magazines, everything that told it wrong. Only his dirty fingernails against my skin, only his
sour smell again" (100). She refuses to seek out a man to "escape," because she has seen too
many neighbors unhappy in marriage. Ruthie, for example, has run away from her husband and
has lost her senses; young Rafaela is so beautiful that her husband locks her indoors when he
leaves. The tragedy which hits Esperanza the hardest though, is that of Sally. Her friend, who,
like Esperanza only wanted to dream and share love, is first beaten by her father to prevent Sally
ruining the family with her "dangerous" beauty. To escape, Sally, though underage, marries a
traveling salesman and the cycle of abuse continues. Enraged and saddened by her friend's
tragedy, Esperanza vows to leave Mango Street, become a writer, and build her dream home.
Cathy becomes Esperanza’s first friend in her new neighborhood. Cathy claims to be
related to the queen of France and hopes to go to France someday to inherit the family house.
Cathy indicates what the neighborhood may have been like in the past, while the two families
that move into her house once she’s left are more representative of the whole neighborhood as
Esperanza comes to experience it. The black man who owns Gil’s furniture is an oddity from the
rest of the neighborhood, different from the people Esperanza sees from day to day. His race
makes him so unfamiliar that Esperanza avoids him and is afraid to talk to him. Meme and his
dog each have two names, a fact that highlights the neighborhood’s two cultures, Latin American
and American, and two languages, Spanish and English, revealing the new cultural makeup of
reveals its physical boundaries. She points out her house again as rundown, and the
neighborhood seems no better. The laundromat is reminiscent of the laundromat below the
apartment in Esperanza’s former neighborhood. That one was boarded up because it was robbed,
and it was a keen source of embarrassment for Esperanza. That her new house is also near a
laundromat suggests that the move to Mango Street is far from enough to change her
circumstances.
Esperanza can see that Marin is a romantic, always be looking for someone else to save
her, “a falling star,” instead of trying to change herself. Esperanza differentiates herself from
Marin by trying to be single-minded in her goal of leaving the neighborhood Marin is one of
Esperanza's first female friends of impression. She sells makeup for Avon and is the girlfriend of
neighbor Louie. However, Marin holds the reputation of a bad girl, because of her loose
sexuality and cigarettes. At this point, however, Esperanza still looks up to her, despite her
company of men.
A small change such as high-heeled women's shoes can transform a little girl into a vibrant
young woman that reeks of sexuality and sensuality. When Esperanza and her friends walk
around in the shoes, they legs are elongated like a woman's and men taunt them. Men make
comments and try to kiss them, all because of their blooming sexuality evident by the shoes.
When the girls discover their new hips, they become so excited, for they realize that they are
now women - women who can give birth. The women they are becoming are women who can
attract men and eventually become involved in. "Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself,
is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone
women. As glamorous as Marin seems with her makeup and her confidence around boys,
In “Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin,” Louie’s other cousin has either stolen the
car he drives or has bought it with money from another crime. He shows a darker aspect of the
barrio: sometimes men try to escape through a life of crime, which, as Louie’s other cousin
Alicia is a neighborhood girl whose mother has died. Alicia is also trying to attend
college, traveling far on public transportation every day so she can escape a life of domestic toil.
She stays up all night studying and thus sees the mice that come out at night. Her father gives her
a hard time about her studies. He says the mice don’t exist and that a woman’s job is to get up
One day, when the sky is full of puffy clouds that everyone is admiring, Darius, a boy
Esperanza doesn’t like because he tries to be tough, says something Esperanza finds wise: he
Though Cathy introduced Alicia as having changed since she went to college, Cathy’s
description is erroneous. Alicia isn’t snobby—she’s busy. She is struggling to fulfill the
responsibilities of a full-time mother while trying to get an education. Her father faults her for
not working enough for the family and the neighborhood calls her “stuck-up,” but she is actually
striving for self-improvement. The patriarchal nature of Hispanic society poses a problem for
girls with ambitions, such as Alicia and Esperanza. In these families, when the mother dies, the
Alicia wishes there were someone older to do the work. To escape her situation, Alicia has
chosen to pursue an education, much different from Marin’s or Louie’s plans. Alicia does not
have the support of her family or the community, which means she’ll have a difficult time
overcoming a sexist tradition. Because Alicia is the character most similar to Esperanza so far,
her struggles suggest that Esperanza, too, will have difficulty asserting and achieving her
independence.
Darius is the first boy Esperanza encounters who has poetic instincts similar to hers.
Though Esperanza lists Darius’s transgressions, including chasing girls with firecrackers and a
stick he says has touched a rat, she can’t help expressing admiration for Darius’s explanation that
a single cloud is God. Although Darius seems initially to be a rough kid who likes to taunt
everyone, he truly has the same hopes and dreams as Esperanza. He expresses his dreams by
looking up at the clouds. He believes he sees God in the sky and continues to look up, so that he
may feel happy and at peace. Whether he realizes what he dreams are or not, he sees them in the
clouds.
She is surprised that such a insightful observation could come from a boy like Darius. He to, has
his own way of coping with the negative cultural traditions, totally different from Esperanza’s
Esperanza experiences shame and embarrassment so acutely in these sections that the
feelings nearly paralyze her. When she wants to eat at school, the nun makes her feel ashamed
about where she lives—the second time a nun has demeaned Esperanza this way. “Chanclas,”
which means “sandal,” Esperanza’s immense shame at her clunky school shoes keeps her from
know whether to stand up or sit down, and her shame leads her to scarf down her lunch in the
bathroom. In all three of these situations, Esperanza’s shame is largely self-imposed. People do
not try to make Esperanza feel bad. Even in her experience with the nun, who does try to
embarrass her, Esperanza ultimately exiles herself out of shame once she gets to the canteen.
These sections suggest that, to succeed, Esperanza must overcome not only the obstacles society
sets up, but also the stumbling block of her own feelings of shame.
Esperanza is ashamed of the note, which is not written convincingly enough to make the
nun follow its instructions. The writing is stilted and childish, much different from the dynamic
style in which Esperanza writes, and the voice of Esperanza’s mother that we hear in the writing
differs from other playful neighborhood voices. Esperanza has her own shortcomings in the
voice she shares with others. Esperanza's mama is a smart cookie with much talent. However,
she never used it to better her own life. She desperately wishes a better life for her daughter and
tells her so. The three sisters tell Esperanza to make a wish. She does not reveal her wish, but
they realize that she hopes to move away from Mango Street and find her own life - a better life.
They instruct her to always remember Mango Street and the world from which she came.
Esperanza realizes that she is Mango Street and it is part of her. She longs to travel and find a
new home of her own; however, she will always return to help those who could not achieve their
The womanizing Earl reveals the neighborhood’s vastly different standards for men and
women regarding sex. He brings home many women, and different people believe different
women might be his wife, though these women are most likely prostitutes. No ugly judgments
“Sire” already has a bad reputation as a sexually willing and available girl. Esperanza
dreams of being Sire’s girlfriend, and this fantasy suggests one possible and dangerous path
Esperanza may take through adolescence. She desires to be in Lois’s place, even though Lois,
Sire’s girlfriend, is passive and helpless. When Esperanza says that Lois cannot tie her own
shoes but Esperanza realizes that Lois’s attractiveness actually lies in her stupidity. Esperanza
looks to Sire and his girlfriend Lois with awe. She longs to be held and touched as a woman, the
same way Sire touches Lois. She realizes she is growing up and is ready to enter womanhood.
However, her mother warns her not to turn out like the type of girl that Lois is Everything is
holding its breath inside me. Everything is waiting to explode like Christmas. I want to be all
new and shiny. I want to sit out bad at night, a boy around my neck and the wind under my skirt.
Not this way, every evening talking to the trees, leaning out my window, imagining what I can't
see." (73) One of the reasons Esperanza does not have a boyfriend like Sire is that her parents
strongly discourage it, telling her not to talk to punks like Sire.
Each of the four women represents a possible fate for women on Mango Street, and they
appear in the order of how similar they are to Esperanza, as well as in the order of how
vulnerable they are. Such ordering suggests the urgency of Esperanza’s situation. Although
Mamacita is unhappy, her sadness comes from her own helplessness, not from her husband.
Rafaela is trapped at home, but she does have the freedom to make exchanges with the children
through the window. Sally is completely under her father’s thumb, and Minerva is in constant
personal danger. Esperanza has to realize that she is not smarter than the women around her.
Surrounded by clever and creative women, Esperanza can view none of them, including her own
everything except take the subway—that is, she knows how to do everything but leave. This
plays on Esperanza’s observation is that the Chinese and the Mexicans do not like their women
Esperanza finally matures and realizes that she needs to change her strategy in trying to
get what she wants. She separates herself from her family, refusing to go with them to visit
houses in the suburbs because she no longer wants to dream about a house. Rather, she wants to
go and get one. She resolves not to forget her origins. Esperanza hopes to have a large house on a
hill one day, in which she can keep bums in the attic, instead of rats and mice. That way, she can
tell people who wonder what the noise is, that she is housing bums. These dreams are to help
other people, and not just herself, separating her wishes from those of others.
Cited works