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.”
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
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