KidLit Forum

Theme

The struggle to find a certain definition for the self

We can call "The House on Mango Street" a bildungsroman for the fact that throughout the novel Esperanza is trying to find a meaning in her life, apart from her identity. She learns how a woman "works". I'll point out some stages she goes through her aging process.

1) innocence: "I want to be like the waves on the sea, like the clouds in the wind, but I'm me." - the poem that she reads to her aunt Lupe is very simple and expressive. The young girl sees herself like in a dream. One day she will get out of her skin and be stronger than today. That "me" that can't become more right now.

- Her "friendship" and "feelings" for the trees: "They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here." She feels alike because she is kind of like them. Rigid, lonely, feeling ugly, afraid to make a radical decision. They just stay there and she just lives... because she hasn't found a way yet. She just lingers.

- Ashamed of her own name. This becomes a very important theme in the novel (Identity and what is it good for?). She thinks that a change of names could solve every problem. She puts on different masks and tries every one of them. She doesn't do anything but to hide. She doesn't have anything to show yet. She's uninteresting. Her dreams don't count.
"In English my name means hope (esperanza). In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness (desperar), it means waiting (esperar). It is like the number nine. A muddy color." The word "muddy" reminds me of a seed. That ugly dot in the ground which becomes a beautiful plant in the future. Those Spanish names from above are nothing but the childish thoughts of a girl who doesn't know what to do with herself and she makes a poetic drama about it. So she waits and observes...

2) adolescence: "Her name is Marin or Maris or something like that, and she wears dark nylons all the time and lots of makeup she gets free from selling Avon. She can't come out – gotta baby-sit with Louie's sisters – but she stands in the doorway a lot, all the time singing." Make-up and sexy clothes are a very good hiding weapon, but also a self-definition pattern. Esperanza is nothing like Marin but she experiences her side of seeing things. They only illustrate the conflict she feels between her sexual attractiveness and her desire for independence.

The shoes are another symbol of her feminity. While she was dressed beautifully she was aware of her clunky brown shoes the entire time. She really wished she wore a sexier or a newer pair like her friends had. But when she, Lucy, and Rachel try on high-heeled shoes a neighbor gives them, the shoes transform their scarred, childish feet and legs into long, slim women’s legs, ("But the truth is it is scary to look down at your foot that is no longer yours and see attached a long long leg") and what began as a childhood game becomes something more dangerous, as male neighbors look at them hungrily. Here she had the opportunity to see the other side of the story. The feeling of being desired. Then they quit playing this game claiming they got bored and become children again, apparently.

The fact that nothing is what it seems, that playing ugly and getting dirty isn't feeling right for Esperanza, like it is for Sally, makes her change her mind in who she wants to become: "beautiful and cruel” like Sally and the women in movies ("In the movies there is always one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away"). Again, this is another bravado, because on one hand in her dreams with Sire, Esperanza is always in control, but in her encounter with the boys who assault her, she has no power. But she only wanted to blend in. Be like other apparently powerful girls is nothing more than lying to herself. Those naughty girls received exactly what was "good" for them. A man in total control, abusive maybe, to calm their high minds up.

Another funny discussion was the "hips" problem. Why women got hips? "Hips are good for holding a baby when you're cooking, Rachel says, turning the jump rope a little quicker. She has no imagination." Esperanza thinks Rachel is off topic but actually this is the role of women in their society. Carry their babies, be strong and healthy. But the discussion leads to other simple things like dancing and make a childish thing out of it. This was another exercise of self observing.

3) maturity: this stage does not only mean that she grew up, but she decided to step aside and let the best medicine cure her identity crisis. From this moment on she turnes into the observer of some ordinary people's lives that don't seem to become more interesting in the future. The only kingdom where she can grow and bloom, escape and never die was her writing.

I forgot to mention, in the last section, the cold war she stuck to. The feminine part is sometimes unbearable and hard to understand or to side with, so she decided to face all of this in a man's way:

I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.

Seeing that she does not have any feminine power of her own, Esperanza decides to play with gender roles and adopt the mannerisms of a man. A manlike sort of thinking is easier for it has no stress in it, it's simple and practical.

This book shows that everyone belongs to a community, to a neighborhood, to a culture, to a country. And you realize that you are different only when you are far away from these. What I liked at this book was that it shows a community that care to each other. They have big families and they are happy having each other. They help each other when they are in need and this brings safety as long as you are in it. The book gives you a warm reading like its pages are full of color. It’s always bright and spiritual. Here is the safest place on earth “Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.”