Feminism In The House On Mango Street

Esperanza wants to become more mature, but when she sees how nasty some men can be to women will she still want to grow up? The novella The House on Mango Street is about a middle preteen girl named Esperanza who is growing up in a world full of struggle. She lives in a small house with her mother, father, and sister Nenny. Esperanza wants to grow up and become independent but she doesn 't know what the world has in store for her when she begins to dress and act more mature. As she begins to mature she learns a valuable lesson on how cruel society can be and just how hard it can be to be a girl who is growing up. In the short story The House On Mango Street, the author Sandra Cisneros uses Esperanza’s struggles and moments of growth as a girl

Esperanza and her friends Rachel and Lucy put on high heels and decide to walk down Mango Street, but a bum asks Rachel to kiss him for a dollar and she almost kisses him, “We are tired of being beautiful. Lucy hides the lemon shoes and the red shoes and the shoes that used to be white but are now pale blue under a powerful bushel basket on the back porch, until one Tuesday he mother, who is very clean, throws them away. But no one complains” (42). This quote really shows the author 's lesson of don’t rush into growing up, you are only a child once because she has Esperanza come encounter with a bum who isn’t exactly looking out for the best interests of her and her friends. The bum is fine with taking advantage of her and her friends and a lot of men in the world are also fine with taking advantage of women. This moment in Esperanza’s life was a huge mind opening moment, she had never felt taken advantage by a man before and she realized the power of how you dress, and how you look. Esperanza was able to take the high heels off and become a kid again but she realized when she is a grown up she can’t just stop being a grown-up whenever she wants. This shows why the author has the lesson of you are only a child once because once you are a grown up you don’t have the choice to become a child again. Esperanza still wants to

Boys and girls are hard to deal with separately, so if you put them together will it make things even more difficult? Sally takes Esperanza with her to see some boys, one of the boy ends up taking advantage of Esperanza, “Sally Sally a hundred times. Why didn’t you hear me when I called? Why didn’t you tell them to leave me alone? The one who grabbed me by the arm, he wouldn’t let me go. He said I love you, Spanish girl, I love you, and pressed his sour mouth into mine” (100). This shows how mean girls can be but also how cruel boys can be, Sally left Esperanza all alone to be taken advantage of by the boy. If Sally had not left her alone, Esperanza most likely wouldn’t have been hurt by the boy. Esperanza being hurt by the boy isn’t all Sally’s fault because the boy hurt Esperanza but Sally set up the situation. Girls can be mean on their own and so can boys, but when you put them together you can have an even worse situation on your hands. If Esperanza hadn’t rushed to grow up she wouldn’t have been hanging out with Sally and most likely would have avoided this whole situation.When the author wrote about this it really showed her lesson of don’t grow up too fast, you can only be a child once because it shows how hard it is to be an adult but it uses kids to show it. Since the author did this it was a very powerful statement, if she hadn’t used kids you would have just thought that was a thing adults do, but since she used kids it showed what happens when you grow up