Esperanza deals with plenty of gender roles, alongside the expectations she has to work with. Esperanza is still coming of age while dealing with gender roles and her expectations. Esperanza has to escape the fact that she can’t like Sire because he has a girlfriend, even though she is jealous of her. She says “But she doesn’t know how to tie her shoes. I do.”(Cisneros 73). That kind of statement shows a bundle of jealousy towards Sire’s girlfriend. Esperanza escapes everyone by thinking about different things, like the four skinny trees in front of her house. She says “They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one that understands them”(Cisneros 74). She also says later that they are “four raggedy excuses planted