Mid-term test
Feminist Literary Criticism Class
4th semester

I made this paper because at that moment I'm in love with the book. The feminist literary class was discussing freudian psycoanalisys theory that I found out quite shocking for me. However I relized the connection between "Veronica decides To Die" and the theory. This can be quite confusing for those who don't know about the theory, so enjoy! hehehe...



Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die:
When a Sexual Release Means Being Alive

Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian writer, is best known for mystical fables told in simple yet symbolic language. He has received wide popular acclaim both in Brazil and internationally for his work about spiritual quests of self-discovery. A recurring concept in Coelho’s books is the personal legend, in which his characters follow their dreams and pursue paths of self-discovery. Though they meet hardships along the way, only by staying true to their dreams can they achieve spiritual fulfillment. Coelho uses simple, clear language to blend religious and philosophical concepts in his work. Concerned with his teenage rebelliousness and desire to be a writer, his parents sent him to a mental institution, where he received electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), a therapy that uses a current of electricity through the forehead. From his experiences during in the mental hospital, he wrote a piece called Veronika Decides to Die, a novel with rich symbolism about a girl who tried to commit suicide because of her mental problem during her youth and how she finds the meaning of life through her sexuality.

Sets in Ljubljana, the capital city of Slovenia, Veronika is a twenty-four-year-old that has everything that a young woman ever dream of: beauty, fulfilling job, loving family, and she seems having no problem at all in her love life. Yet she decided to commit suicide by swallowing a large amount of sleeping pills and hoping that she will never wake up. The first reason why she decides to die is her unwillingness of experiencing the same routines in her life, and once her youth is gone she thinks that her life will be nothing but sufferings. The second is her philosophical reason, that she is tired of witnessing what is going on in the world; war, poverty, etc, that makes her feel even more powerless.

She takes sleeping pills and believes that it would end her life, however she does wake up in a mental hospital called Villete where is told she only has days to live because of heart damage by the sleeping pills. In the Villete, she meets two new friends, Zedka and Mari that helps her finding another perspective in seeing her life. Moreover, she meets Eduard, a schizophrenic, and they fall in love. Finally in her last days to live, she realizes the true meaning of life, but maybe it was too late for her to undo the suicide act that shortened her life. As the unique way of Coelho’s story-telling, the end of the novel is sweet, surprising, and left the reader enlightened.

In Veronika Decides to Die, besides the touching story about spiritual self-searching, there are three things that are related to feminism theories that uniquely depict in the writing of a male author. First, the symbolism of the insane that lives inside a cage of the mental hospital. Second, Veronika’s relationship with her parents. Third, sexuality as Veronika’s way in finding the true meaning of her life. All these three points: symbolism, relationships within the family structure, and sexuality, will be discussed with psychoanalytic framework. The last point leads to Veronika’s (and also her friends’) mental and psychological enlightenments that give her the idea of what it means to be alive. Even though Coelho did not show these ideas explicitly, we can see that the enlightenment that Veronika (and other character like Mari and Zedka) gets from the mental hospital creates a more positive and enlightened human being.

Since the beginning of the novel, Coelho already shows the difference nature of femininity and masculinity as shown in this line; “Shooting, jumping off a high building, hanging, none of these options suited her feminine nature. Women, when they kill themselves, choose far more romantic methods_ like slashing their wrists or taking an overdose of sleeping pills” [p. 3]. Based on this quotation, we can see that Veronika is positioned as a feminine (“None of these suited her feminine nature”) The act of taking sleeping pills reflect femininity because it is less daring than shooting, jumping off a high building, hanging, etc. Shooting or jumping involves adrenalin rush, while in the text Coelho writes that slashing their wrists or taking an overdose pills as far more romantic way to kill oneself than shooting, jumping, or hanging, as if woman is less daring than man to attempt suicide by doing an adrenalin rush act. This ‘romantic act’ is associated with woman, and in Veronika Decides to Die; a death because of taking an overdose sleeping pills is described as a feminine act. Therefore we can conclude that there are difference characteristics of femininity and masculinity in the novel, and this difference natural characteristic leads to the patriarchy social assumption that masculinity is more superior than femininity [Rosemary P Tong: Feminist Thought, p.190]

Ljubljana is described as a beautiful city where people keep doing the same routines in life. On the contrary, Villete mental hospital described as a prison, where the insane lives in isolation from the outside world and have to face the inhuman electricity shot treatment called electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) and all the doctors and nurses are the ruler in the society,
Villete came to symbolize all the worst aspects of capitalism: to be admitted to the hospital, all you needed was money […] Villete was the place from which no one had ever escaped, where genuine lunatics_ sent there by the courts or by other hospitals_ mingled with those merely accused of insanity or those pretending to be insane [p. 12 – 13]

The similarity of a prison and Villete is that the patient that has to be medicated in Villete was ‘accused’ of insanity. The word ‘accused’ is used as if the insane are criminals. The surroundings, the tall strong walls, the routines of the Villete is the similar like a jail, with all the masculine characteristic in the language (capitalism, walls, prison, etc) and the mean electroconvulsive therapy. Yet, the patients that are ‘accused’ of insanity were described as passive, narcistic, masochist, and vain, which according to Sigmund Freud as feminine characteristics. These feminine characteristics can be found in both in female and male characters. Veronika’s act of committing suicide is the act of masochism, and then she become very passive in waiting for her death to come. Zedka and Mari, both are narcistic (self-loving) characters; we can see this from their justification, arguments, and excuses for themselves about their insanity so that they seem right about everything. Eduard, the schizophrenic character is the most passive and vain character. Ever since he became schizophrenic, Eduard lives without interacting and communicating to the others, he lives in his own world where he is very passive and vain. Zedka and Eduard have to do the electroconvulsive therapy, where the divine rights of their own body is taken and forced to do the inhuman electricity shock therapy because there are ‘accused’ as lunatics. These passiveness, vanity, masochism, and narcisticism according to Freud are the ‘marks of womenhood’ [Susan Watkins: Twentieth-Century Women Novelist, p.86. Rosemary P Tong, p. 195] Even though Eduard is a man, he still represents the characteristic of ‘marks of womenhood’, it shows that the insane (no matter they are male or female) are the symbol of women that is oppressed. It also shows how man (in this case, represented by Eduard) is still possible to be trapped in the border. Based on all this characteristic of the setting and character, then we can conclude that the insane are the symbol of women that trapped inside the patriarchy society where everyone inside has to obey all the assumptions and norms of the society and the walls of Villete is the symbol of the border, a masculine superego that oppresses feminine desires that is seen as insanity.

The next point that we can find in the novel is a big role of family structure that shapes Veronika’s character. Veronika was described as a woman that had enough love from such a caring family. However, Veronika hates her mother as in this quotation depict:

Then she started to feel hatred for the person she loved most in the world: her mother. A wonderful wife who worked all day and washed the dishes all night, sacrificing her own life so that her daughter would have good education, know how to play the piano and the violin […] How can I hate someone who only ever gave me love? Thought Veronika, confused, trying to check her feelings. But it was too late; her hatred had been unleashed; she had opened the door to her personal hell. She hated the love she had been given because it had asked nothing in return, wich was absurd, unreal, against the law of nature. That love asking for nothing in return had managed to fill her with guilt, with the desire to fulfill another expectations, even if that meant giving up everything she had ever dreamed of [p.68-69]

We can see that her hatred to her mother explained her disappointments of her life, that she feels her life is ‘shaped’ like her mother wants her to be; a woman that is able to play piano, have good education, getting married someday and having children. In other words, a woman that lives in the symbolic order. Next, it is clear that Veronika experiences Oedipus complex, an attraction of love for the parent of opposite sex, with the corresponding jealousy of the parent of the same sex [Havelock Ellis: Psychology of Sex, p.73] We can see the evidence of this theory in this novel from the description about Veronika’s father and how Veronika loves her father as a man when she was young:

She hated her father too, because, unlike her mother, who worked all the time, he knew how to live; he took her to bars and to the theater, they had fun together; and when he was still young, she had loved him secretly, not the way one loves a father, but as a man. She hated him because he had always been so charming and so open with everyone except her mother, the only person who really deserved such treatment. [p.69]

Based on this quotation, however, there is an ambiguity about the jealousy of the parent of the same sex. It is possible that Veronika unconsciously jealous with her mother, yet she defends her mother by hating her father for abandoning her mother. This confusion then leads to Veronika’s depression and disappointment of her life that finally makes her decided to kill herself.

Another important point in Veronika Decides to Die is how sexuality plays a big role in her self-discovery. All of the Freud’s “marks of womanhood” that are mentioned above is happen when the characters; Veronika, Zedka, Mari, and Eduard have not get the enlightenment yet. One day Mari tells her to masturbate, to see how far she can go before death comes unto her. Veronika agrees and finds Eduard, the mute schizophrenic and masturbate in front of him. She let it all out and finally finds herself with multiple orgasms:

Veronika and Eduard are both standing up, face to face, she naked, he fully clothed. Veronika slid her own hand down to her genitals and started to masturbate; she had done it before, either alone or with certain partners, but never in situation like this, where the men showed no apparent interest in what was happening […] She wanted to die in orgasmic pleasure, thinking about and realizing everything that had always been forbidden to her [p.133]

From this quotation comes a question; what was the things that had been forbidden to her? The answer is clear, the openness to sexuality, more specific: wild desires. When finally Veronika finds her openness to her sexuality, it helps her find herself. As before she tries to find out how far she can go she never really understand herself; “Although she had known many men, she had never experienced the most hidden part of her own desires, and the result was that half of her life had been unknown to her [p.135]” and in “I discovered that I’m a pervert, doctor. I want to know if that played some part in my attempted suicide. There are so many things I didn’t know about myself [p.141]”

As we can see, Veronika identify herself as a pervert after she did this sexual act. Normally, this act is considered as an immoral act by the society. On the contrary, it is actually the release of Veronika’s Id; her unconscious that has no values, her pleasure principal, where all this time it has been oppressed by moral restrictions that involve punishment/reward in the society, the superego. By letting her Id out, it means that she let her unconscious take control of herself. She then relies that she had never explore herself before, and this might be her reason to attempt suicide. In other words, Veronika is breaking the border that oppress her unconscious, letting her Id out of the circle of ego and superego, left her with more question about herself that she has never known before. Finally, this curiosity leads her willingness to be alive and knowing herself better.

After the masturbation as her sexual release, she finds out that Eduard is cured. He is no longer a schizophrenic and he can interact as well as communicate with the society. They planned to get out of Villete and enjoy Veronika’s last days alive. Veronika shares her experience with Mari and Zedka, and finally both Mari and Zedka experience enlightenment too from Veronika that is changed from a passive and depressed person to a woman that more appreciate life.

The enlightenment Veronika and her friends get is from Veronika’s sexual awakening. After they got enlightened and realize how they should live their live, the “marks of womanhood” character in them has transformed into people who appreciate life more than ever that one example can be seen in Mari’s letter for her friends in the Villete about how she changes with the symbolism of an aquarium and fountains as her life:

When I was still a young lawyer, I read some poems by an English poet, and something he said impressed me greatly: ‘Be like the fountain that overflows, not like the cistern that merely contains’. I always thought he was wrong. It was dangerous to overflow, because we might end up flooding areas occupied by our loved ones and drowning them with our love and enthusiasm. All my life I did my best to be a cistern, never going beyond the limits of my inner walls […] We lived together like fish in an aquarium, contented because someone threw us food when we needed it, and we could, whenever we wanted to, see the world outside through the glass […] I learned something important: Life inside is exactly the same outside [p.198]

Before Mari and Zedka knows Veronika, they had a dark past with insanity, Zedka with her depression and Mari with her paranoia. They are trapped in a society that ‘accused’ them as a lunatic people inside the Villete, just like women that are oppressed in the patriarchal society. Both Mari and Zedka finally decide to get out of the Villete too, and they move on with their own plan as an independent, cured, human being. Their ‘walk-away’ from the wall of the Villete for their freedom is a fulfillment of all kind of feminist’s utopian dreams; being liberated from the wall of negative patriarchal social assumption about woman.

At the end, Veronika and Eduard are together in the city center, and Veronika not die. She was secretly become the object of a new kind medicine for her heart damage by her doctor, dr.Igor. She does not even know that she is actually cured, and finds that every day is a miracle for her life.

From the discussion above, Coelho uses sexuality as one important aspect in self-development. Therefore he shows that to be liberated from oppression is to get to know our self as a being. With the symbol of the Villete, the lunatics, the patriarchy society and the utopian feminist dreams of liberty, supported the characters, Veronika Decides to Die reflects how sexual discovering as one powerful way to be released from oppression and a reason to keep alive.

Bibilography

• Amiruddin, Mariana. ”SEX and TEXT (Sexts): Konsep Pembebasan Seksualitas Perempuan Lewat Sastra”. Jurnal Perempuan No.30: Perempuan dalam Seni Sastra. Jakarta: Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan. 2003
• Arivia, Gadis. Filsafat Berperspektif Feminis. Jakarta: Yayasan Jurnal Perempuan. 2003.
  Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Teori dan Praktik (Terj.) Yogyakarta: Kreasi Wacana. 2004.
• Brooks, Ann. Posfeminisme dan Cultural Studies: Sebuah Pengantar Paling Komprehensif (Terj.). Yogyakarta: Jalasutra.
• Coelho, Paulo. Veronika Decides to Die. NY: Harper Perennial. 2001.
• Ellis, Havelock. Psychology of Sex. NY: The New American Library. 1938.
• Hidayana, Irwan M, dkk. Seksualitas: Teori dan Realitas. Depok: Program Gender dan Seksualitas FISIP UI. 2004.
• Tong, Rosemarie Putnam. Feminist Thought: Pengantar Paling Komprehensif Kepada Arus Utama Pemikiran Feminis (Terj.) Yogyakarta: Jalasutra.
• Watkins, Susan. Twentieth-Century Women Novelists. NY: Palgrave. 2001.
• Wright, Elizabeth. Psichoanalitic Criticism: Theory in Practice. London: Routledge. 1989.

This is my 4th semester paper in Prose II class. Even though I admit the language is too simple for a 4th semester student. However, I spotlight some issues concerning "feminism awakenings" undoubtfully. And I think that's what makes this essay got an A. You should read the book. It tells feminism in a very simple way. I really recommend it. It uses simple words, and the writer really know how to think like a teenage-to-be girl.

Prose II, Mid-Term assignment

4th semester

The Searching of Self-Identity and a Series of Esperanza’s Awakenings
In Cisneros’ “The House on Mango Street”

Getting through the adolescent phase is an important moment for every person in life. Moreover, adolescent usually develop their own independent thoughts and mind and get several awakenings they have got in this phase of life. Although the society sometimes underestimates the thoughts and mind of an adolescent, they still have the liberty to have their own thoughts and mind from the awakenings they experience in this phase. In Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, Esperanza experiences a series of awakenings in the process of searching her self-identity as she matures in the house on Mango Street that can be seen in the changes of character’s thoughts and mind in seeing life throughout the story.

Since The House on Mango Street uses first person point of view that is narrated by Esperanza herself, then the changes in Esperanza character is strongly supported by the point of view. With the first person point of view, the author let the reader be part of Esperanza. Therefore, readers have the ability to explore the logic of thinking in an innocent mind of an adolescent like Esperanza. Esperanza is a round character for she had a complex personality.

From the beginning of the story, there are some clues that Esperanza is in the period of searching her self-identity. In the first vignette, Esperanza describes the house they just move in as a temporary place to be lived in. From the following quotations in the last paragraph of the first vignette ‘House on a Mango Street’ shows that Esperanza is still looking a place to settle down; “I knew then I have to had a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t it. The house on Mango Street isn’t it.” As a place to settle down, house means something important to a person or a family. Here, a house is a symbol of settlement and self-identity. She cannot accept the fact that the house of Mango Street as a place to settle down because she is not satisfied with the house. It indicate the willingness of Esperanza to keep searching for a place to settle, in other words, she is looking for her herself as if looking for another place to settle. Having a house of her own (I have to had a house), thus, a metaphor for having a place of her own as an independent woman. Moreover, Esperanza mentioned “The one I could point to” referring of the willing to have a proudness of having such a house that can be shown proudly to other people, which means that she want to have a character and identity of her own, as if it is her own home without intervention. The use of repetition in the quotation; “I have to had a house, a real house […] but this isn’t, Mango Street isn’t” makes it clear that Esperanza is emphasizing on how important is to have a house of her own and how Mango Street is not the place she belongs to. Overall, it is clear that Ezperanza is in a moment of self-searching since the beginning of the story.

Another indication of Esperanza’s self-identity searching is clearly revealed in “My Name”. Esperanza tells the meaning of her name with dissatisfaction and explains the negative meaning of her name in Spanish; “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting […] a muddy color”. The words ‘too many’, ‘sadness’, ‘waiting’ and ‘muddy color’ shows her perspective of her name which is she thinks that her name is very ugly. However, her name has a positive meaning in English: hope. There is a correlation between the meaning of her name with the language that the writer wants to show. In the place of Esperanza’s native spoken language (Spanish) women are not treated well, however Esperanza realize that there is hope in other society like the meaning of her name in the other possibility of language; English. In this vignette, Esperanza also mentions the intention to change her name; “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. […] Something like Zeze the X will do”. By wanting to change her name it means that she is not yet having a clear definition of her self-identity. We can see this in the use of the word ‘baptize’ which is a Christian’s term for people who are newly become Christian, usually these people also get a new name that referring to Christianity. Even though Esperanza does not refer to the Christianity when saying this, but there is a correlation with having a new name and the ‘newly become’ something else. She wants to have a new name more like the real her, it indicates that she want people to notice her true identity, the one that people do not see. The name that she wanted such as ‘Zeze the X’ is a unique name that she is more likely to have rather than having a name with a sad history about her grandmother that looked out the window all her life as in “I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window”. She feels that the name ‘Esperanza’ does not suit her personality; therefore she believes that her inner-self will suit the name Zeze the X. Here, it is obvious that a name has meant a lot to Esperanza in her self-searching experience.

The first awakening she had experienced during her adolescent life is the feminism awakening. Actually, Esperanza has already become a feminist since the beginning of the story, but the spirit of feminism in Esperanza grew stronger as the story developed. We can see the spirit of feminism of Esperanza from the first vignette ‘House on Mango Street’ on how she would like to be independent and having a house of her own like I have already mentioned before. Moreover, the spirit of feminism within Esperanza has been developed in the vignette ‘My Name’ as this quotation depicts

It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse _ which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female _ but I think this is a Chinese lie, because Chinese, like the Mexicans, don’ t like their women strong. [page 12]

Esperanza tells that being born in the Chinese year of the horse bring bad luck if we are female. However, Esperanza then reject this myth and thinks that it is a Chinese lie. Finally Esperanza explicitly tells that the Mexican and Chinese are the same because they do not like their women to be strong. It is obvious that Esperanza have a strong feminism spirit, by rejecting the Chinese myth and related it with how Mexican do not like their woman to be strong. In other words Esperanza is rejecting the patriarchy society, in this case is the Mexican and Chinese patriarchy society that she mentioned in the quotation. Then we can say that Esperanza disagree with the idea of women being weaken by the society.

In the vignette ‘Beautiful and Cruel’, Esperanza starts her quiet war with the patriarchy society; “but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain.” Here, she realizes that she has her own power and she could challenge the patriarchal society. Her mission to create her own identity is manifested by her decision to not laying (her) neck on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain. The example of a woman she wanted to become is; “one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drive the men crazy and laugh them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away.” This quotation depict the image of a woman she wanted to be, the one that has power over men. In this vignette, Esperanza’s feminism awakening is at the top of the game when she commits to herself to be the woman that she described.

The second awakening that Esperanza experienced is the sexual awakening, which is the transformation from a mere child into a young woman where she realizes the importance of sexual attraction. In ‘Boys and Girls’ Esperanza thinks that boys and girls is a completely different being and lives in a separate world; “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brother for example. They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house, But outside the house they can’t be seen talking to girls”. This is Esperanza’s point of view about the social life between boys and girls at that stage of age. She thinks that boy and girls as children have their own world where girls cannot enter boys’ world and so does boys cannot enter girls’ world. We can see this when Esperanza said that her brother could not talk to her and Nenny outside of the house. This is usually happen when a child like her brother is ashamed being known to have a close relationship with the opposite sex. However, the shame is gone when they are in their house because nobody sees them. This is commonly children’s character. Therefore, by observing the relationship of Esperanza and her brother we can say that Esperanza in this state is still being a child and have not got a sexual awakening yet.

The first major step in Esperanza’s awareness in sexuality is when she and her friends explore the neighborhood with high-heeled shoes in the vignette ‘The Family of Little Feet’.

Hurray! Today we are Cinderella because our feet fit exactly and we laugh at Rachel’s one foot with girl’s grey sock and a lady’s high heel. Do you like these shoes? But the truth is it is scarey to look down at your foot that is no longer yours and see attached a long long leg [page 38]

From this quotation, we can see that this is when Esperanza relates the shoes and sex for the first time, and therefore the shoes symbolized the young woman. Esperanza and her friends admires the shoes so much and feel that the high heel shoes gives them the self confident as something that could make her being attracted by the opposite sex. However, as an adolescent part of her is still a child, as we can see in “[…] we laughed at Rachel’s one foot with girl’s grey sock and a lady’s high heel […] But the truth it is scarey to look down at your foot that is no longer yours and see attached a long long leg.” Here, there is a situation where Rachel wears a high heel lady shoes with a girl’s sock. This indicates the proportion of girl that is symbolized by sock and half woman that is symbolized by shoes within their personality. Also, the misspell of the word ‘scary’ become ‘scarey’ shows that the writer is showing the childlike character in Esperanza and her friends. Esperanza admits that wearing the high heels shoes make them no longer herself that is described as a leg that is ‘attached’ to their body. It is clear that Esperanza has experienced the change in her perspective about boys and girls living in two different world, she finally realizes that there are some connections between boys and girls that could make this two being become closer, that is sexuality. We can see from here that the curiosity to develop the sexual knowledge has begun.

When Lucy decided to take off the socks, Esperanza and her friends have more confident and feels that they are already a young woman. The confident can be seen in this quotation; “Then Lucy screams to take our socks off and yes, it’s true. We have legs. Skinny and spotted with satin scars where scabs were picked, but legs, all our own, good to look at, and long.” It is clear that Esperanza is not longer feels separated with the high heels shoes as the girly socks is taken off. On the contrary, she feels that the long leg that has been created by using the shoes is actually part of herself as a young woman. As they decided to walk down the neighborhood to attract the opposite sex, it is obvious here that the high heels shoes has given them the sexual awakening that makes them realized how important is the attraction of the opposite sex. However, later in the same vignette, Esperanza and her friends experience an assault by a drunkard and then they realized the risk of being beautiful grown woman as described in this quotation;

We are tired of being beautiful. Lucy hides the Lemon shoes and the red shoes and the shoes that used to be white and now pale blue under a powerful bushel basket on the back porch, until one Tuesday her mother who is very clean throws them away. But no one complains. [page 40]

The next awakening Esperanza experienced is the realization of her own writing ability that can be seen in ‘Born Bad’. In this vignette, Esperanza is visiting aunt Lupe, the woman who used to be a beautiful swimmer, wife, and a mother who is suffer from an unexplained illness that left her limps and blind. One day Esperanza read her a poem of her own for her

I want to be
like the waves on the sea,
like the clouds in the wind,
but I’m me
one day I’ll jump
out of my skin.
I’ll shake the sky
like hundred violins
[page 56]

The poem is about Esperanza herself, about her willingness to search her true self identity and her wish to be free from the society that is tied her from expressing herself. We can see this by the simile in the poem on how she compares herself to be the character of the waves on the sea and the clouds in the wind that is have the freedom in following the intuitions what may come and go in life. However, Esperanza also gives the contradictory to what happen by saying “but I’m me” and then expressing her intention to get away from the society that tied her, finding her true self, and do something big in life as in “one day I’ll jump / out of my skin / I’ll shake the sky / like hundred violins.”

Aunt Lupe response positively to the poem Esperanza writes and encourage her to keep writing, as in; “You just remember to keep writing, Esperanza. You must keep writing. It will keep you free, and I said yes, but at that time I didn’t know what she meant.” At first, Esperanza does not realize what Aunt Lupe meant by saying that writing will keep her free. At the end of the vignette when Aunt Lupe died, Esperanza starts to think about the freedom from writing and start dreaming the dreams, as in the quotation; “And then she died, my aunt who listened to my poems. And then we began to dream the dreams.” Here, Esperanza starts thinking of her writing ability. As her aunt telling her that writing could free her, she began to dream about the freedom itself.
The last awakening that Esperanza experiences is the realization and changes from individualism to responsibility toward other women. As the feminism spirit within Esperanza develops, she also become more individualist. We can see this by Esperanza’s intention to leave the neighborhood, leaving all the people behind, and having a life of her own. However, later at the end of the story, Esperanza develops the feeling of responsibility that someday she should go back to the neighborhood for other women.

In the vignette ‘The Three Sisters’, Esperanza got the first warning of not being an individualist. Esperanza is attending the funeral of Lucy’s and Rachel’s sister and meet “Las Comadres” or three strange and mysterious old sisters who have the ability to read mind and sense something that could happen in the future. The fortune they predict for Esperanza is very noteworthy

When you leave you must remember always to come back, she said.
What?
When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget what you are. [page 97-98]

Later on, Esperanza feels ashamed of being an individualist as Esperanza narrated; “I felt ashamed for having made such a selfish wish.” Then the three sister emphasize that she should help other; “You must remember to come back. For the ones who cannot leave as easily as you.” This notify Esperanza to help other women, not to be self-centered. By saying that Esperanza will always be Esperanza, and she cannot run from the fact that she is once lived in Mango Street, it means that she will always be part of it because all the development in her way of seeing life and all the awakenings she has got is actually because of Mango Street. In other words, Mango Street has been an inspiration and involved much on her character building in her adolescent phase of life and therefore she should not abandon other woman in Mango Street.

Beside the three sisters, in the vignette ‘Alicia and I Talking on Edna’s Steps’, Esperanza learns a very important lesson that she cannot deny her own heritage from Alicia. Alicia responses when Esperanza tells her that she have no house; “You live right here, 4006 Mango, Alicia says and points to the house I am ashamed of.” The words ‘house I am ashamed of’ clearly reveals that she does not want to be part of the house. This statement is being strengthened by the next quotation of Esperanza;

No, this isn’t my house I say and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I’ve lived here. I don’t belong. I don’t ever want to come from here. You have a home, Alicia, and one day you’ll go there, to a little town you remember, but me I never had a house, not even a photograph… only one I dream of.[page 99]

By saying that Esperanza wants to undo the year she spent living in a Mango Street, she is indeed rejecting the belonging of herself and reject to be part of Mango Street. For her, living in a Mango Street is such a shame. Also, there is another symbolization of a house in “I never had a house […] only one I dreamed of”, the house she mentioned is actually the right place for her about the independency she dreamed of as I mentioned in the searching of Esperanza’s self-identity as she searching a home. Then, Alicia responses it naively; “Like it or not you are Mango Street and one day you’ll come back too.” Indeed that Alicia has the same point as the three sisters. When Esperanza mentioned that she will not go back to the Mango Street unless somebody makes it better, the writer leaves this vignette with an irony about who would make Mango Street become better in Alicia’s question; “Who’s going to do it? Not the major.” The question is left unanswered.

Another clear definition of her willingness to have her own independency also implied in ‘A House of My Own’

Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not daddy’s. A house all my own. With my porch and my pillow, my pretty purple petunias. My books and my stories. My two shoes waiting beside the bed. Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after.
Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem. [page 100]

Esperanza describes the place she wanted to be lived in as a house with such a description and self-owned; ‘my porch’, ‘my pillow’, ‘my petunias’, ‘my books and stories’, it shows that Esperanza is longing for the independency and showing the part of her individualism. When she narrated; “Nobody to shake a stick at. Nobody’s garbage to pick up after” indicates the willingness of having no intervention. It is also strengthened by the phrase; “A place for myself to go” that shows the individualism in herself.

In the last vignette ‘Mango Says Goodbye Sometimes’, Esperanza finally made up her mind and completely being awakened from her individualist state into a woman that responsible toward others and that even in time she will embrace it and help the community where she learned so much about human relations. In “She does not hold me with both arms. She sets me free” and “I am too strong for her to keep me here forever”, there is a personification of the House on Mango Street as the use of pronoun ‘she’. Finally Esperanza realized that Mango Street does not tied her forever, she realized that actually she has the ability to get away from Mango Street. However, she intended to come back and help other as described in the last sentence of the last vignette; “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the one I left behind. For the ones who cannot out.”

The character of Esperanza in her adolescent experiences a series of awakenings in the process of searching her self-identity as she matures in the house on Mango Street. She experienced four awakenings, which are; feminism awakenings, sexual awakening, the awakening of her ability in writing, and the awakening from being an individualist become a responsible person towards other woman in Mango Street. Throughout the story, the character of Esperanza, included all the psychological changes she has had, has a dominant part that gives the moral lesson in the story and become something that makes the novel “The House on Mango Street” become special.

References:

• Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1988.
• Klarer, Mario. An Introduction to Literary Studies. New York: Routledge, 2004.
• Martin, Alex and Robert Hill. Modern Novels. New York: Prentice Hall, 1996.
• http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mangostreet/quotes.html
• http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/author/about_sandra_cisneros.html
• http://www.gradesaver.com/classicnotes/ titles/houseonmango/about.html