ipl-logo

Gender Roles In The House On Mango Street

1854 Words8 Pages

Showing itself in sexism, misogyny, and overall oppression expressed to women, enabled through the patriarchy, gender inequality has long been part of the history of the world. Several instances of gender inequality towards women are presented in Sandra Cisneros’ novella, The House on Mango Street; a bildungsroman conveyed through a series of vignettes and told by the character of Esperanza, a Mexican-American girl. Throughout the novella, Esperanza is struggling to form her identity while living in an impoverished neighborhood and surrounded by unfortunate cases. In the novella, Cisneros depicts how women are denied freedom due to the damaging effects of both traditional gender roles and societal expectations because the roles they are forced …show more content…

Esperanza mentions the fact that “[Minerva] already has two kids and a husband who left” (Cisneros 84-85), despite her young age. A few years older than Esperanza, Minerva has the responsibility to provide for herself and two children, as a result of exchanging her freedom for the love of someone who “left and keeps leaving”. However, her husband only continues to return because Minerva is enabling his actions after being given poor apologies. She falls further into entrapment due to her lack of wisdom, ironic since her name refers to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena. Ultimately, the cycle of abuse will continue unless she reclaims her freedom before devoting more of her time to receive the temporary attention he feeds her. In the vignette, “The Monkey Garden'', Cisneros presents a set of foil characters by comparing the differences in the sexual maturity of the adolescents, Esperanza and Sally. In recounting her day, …show more content…

Unlike Esperanza, Sally does not play childish games and instead finds entertainment through objectifying herself and allowing the boys to take advantage of her in exchange for their attention and validation. Through the contrast of their actions throughout the vignette, the author emphasizes how deep Esperanza really is in this prelapsarian state and how far Sally is from it. After confronting Sally and the boys, Esperanza feels that society has made a fool out of her once more for believing such treatment towards women is taken seriously in a corrupt society. While Esperanza’s lack of sexual maturity aids her in clearly seeing the damage being done to Sally, Sally is blinded by her overwhelming sexual maturity and is unable to see the consequences of participating in such games. Sally and the boys confirm they are no longer in the prelapsarian state Esperanza remains in but rather in the corrupt society that normalizes sexually mature behavior in adolescents through their refusal to play childish games with the other kids. Furthermore, in the vignette,

Show More
Related

The House On Mango Street Sacrifice Essay

732 Words | 3 Pages

Although there are a variety of characters throughout literature that have made sacrifices that expose their values, none of them come close in comparison to the sacrifices of Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. The consistent sacrifices displayed through Esperanza’s self-image, innocence, and cynicism express the struggles and desire for feminine individuality and respect that begin for many in childhood and dissolve into adulthood. Not only does Esperanza display these sacrifices constantly throughout the novel, the author’s use of her character as a beacon of catharsis to the reader symbolically represents the majority of women. Much like other women, Esperanza constantly tries to find herself throughout her own sacrifices,

Read More

Influential Characters In The House On Mango Street

562 Words | 3 Pages

She is a Puerto Rican girl that wants “someone to change her life” and spends her days babysitting at her house (27). Esperanza gets the idea of marrying a rich man to get out of Mango Street. Marin also tells her about boys “is for the boys to see us and for us to see them” (27). These two ideas Marin shared with Esperanza shows how she can leave Mango Street and live a better life. To conclude, Sally, Mom, and Marin are the three most influential characters in the novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros for opening abusive relationships, staying in school for the better, and leaving poverty by marrying a rich man to the main character

Read More

Realities In The House On Mango Street

493 Words | 2 Pages

The House on Mango Street: Facing Realities In The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, many characters struggle with facing the realities of their lives and economical situations. Two prominent examples of this struggle are houses and trapped women. One girl, named Esperanza, is raped while she is visiting the carnival with her friend Sally. Esperanza said, "Sally, you lied.

Read More

Women In The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

304 Words | 2 Pages

In the novella The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, women in Esperanza’s life motivate her to live her life with purpose. The protagonist, Esperanza Cordero, is a young Mexican-American girl living in Chicago. The novella follows Esperanza as she changes from a young girl to a young woman. Esperanza lives on Mango Street, which is filled with family, friends, and stories. On Mango Street, a woman named Rafaela lives with her husband.

Read More

Loss Of Innocence In The House On Mango Street

1405 Words | 6 Pages

Most of Esperanza’s female neighbors are abused or oppressed by their fathers and husbands, so Esperanza knows that she wants to escape the male dominated society, but at the same time she has to deal with her own sexuality and her desire to be loved by men. She meets Sally who is around the same age as her but is more sexually mature than other girls and she also has an abusive father. Being a Sally’s friend, Esperanza experiences “the loss of innocence” as she describes it in the book. Esperanza’s friendship with Sally also leads her to the most traumatic experience in the book, for example, as Sally leaves her alone at a carnival Esperanza is raped. This is the moment that Esperanza’s experiences a massive impact in her life.

Read More

The House On Mango Street Gender Roles

707 Words | 3 Pages

Imagine sacrificing your future solely for another person's benefit. Over time, there has been a recurring pattern of women becoming a second priority. Many women are presumed to put others' aspirations before theirs because of traditional and stereotypical female roles or because of controlling male figures. This theme is shown throughout Sandra Cisernos's novel, The House on Mango Street. This book is a collection of vignettes exploring Esperanza's coming-of-age and evolving perspectives on life.

Read More

Sexism In The House On Mango Street

1204 Words | 5 Pages

Many girls desire a female role model from a young age. The way these women are treated, and deal with this treatment can heavily impact the way young girls view themselves, and their future as well. Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street brings attention to issues of sexism and gender roles. This is done through a series of vignettes about the main character Esperanza navigating life by the example of her many role models. Each role model impacts Esperanza in a special way, Sally who is married at 13, Marin who is waiting to be rescued by a man, and Alicia who is balancing school and home responsibilities.

Read More

Female Role Models In Mango Street

910 Words | 4 Pages

Growing up as a young female teen came be hard due to the stress and peer pressure of appearance. For teenage girls from immigrant families, it came be very challenging to fit in with the “American way”. Esperanza struggles throughout the book with finding her place in society. She looks to other female role models in her community for guidance, where she finds different results. Most of Esperanza’s female role models on Mango Street have unique stories to tell of their experiences with men on Mango Street.

Read More

The House On Mango Street: Isolation, Limitation, Expectation

896 Words | 4 Pages

Prajwal Agrawal Ms. Banack English 1A, Period 5 21 MAR 2023 Isolation, Limitation, Expectation Throughout history, women have been continuously bound by the expectations of society. In socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, such as the one presented in Sandra Cisneros’s novella The House on Mango Street, women are further confined to their monotonous futures in the household to which they have been chained. Cisneros uses the abuse cycle, objectification, and gender expectations to display the patriarchy's limits on the potential of women on Mango Street.

Read More

Reoccurring Themes

592 Words | 3 Pages

Sandra Cisneros' novel, The House on Mango Street, is a coming-of-age story that explores complex issues of race, gender, and identity. The novel shows this through the experiences and development of its protagonist, Esperanza, and the other characters that live on Mango Street in Chicago. As a coming-of-age story, The House on Mango Street tackles mature themes, reflecting on the world's complications and human experiences of self-discovery and growing up. Sandra Cisneros' novel highlights the issue of racism as a reoccurring theme. In the vignette titled "Those Who Don't," Esperanza shares her experiences of being seen as dangerous by people who are not from her neighborhood.

Read More

House On Mango Street Culture

437 Words | 2 Pages

The House on Mango Street is set in a poor, primarily Hispanic neighborhood. Author Sandra Cisneros creates an atypical, yet easily digestible world for the reader to experience while learning about Esperanza’s childhood. The culture of her environment influences Esperanza’s development as she becomes a young woman, and contributes to the book’s driving theme of self-empowerment. Mango Street is the source of Esperanza’s growth through her childhood, and it hides sadness and longing underneath stereotypes of Hispanic people. The characters that live in the broken-down neighborhood all seem to represent pigeonholed views of Latino individuals.

Read More

Societal Expectations In The House On Mango Street

575 Words | 3 Pages

Societal expectations are a part of everyone’s life, male or female. From the day people are born, there are roles they are expected to assume-- wife, homemaker, father, provider, mother and many others. While these aren’t necessarily negative, the stigma of not fulfilling these roles can be unpleasant. While the roles we are supposed to choose aren’t always clearly defined, the judgement that comes from choosing to take certain actions in life, like settling down or becoming a mother is palpable. Throughout The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s view of the world is largely shaped by the people around her, which are her neighbors, family, and friends.

Read More

Poverty In The House On Mango Street

1117 Words | 5 Pages

Esperanza is often humiliated not only by where she lives, but also by her physical appearance, hence causing a restriction in her climb to a higher social class. Esperanza is frequently ashamed of her family’s broken-down house in an urban, poor

Read More

House On Mango Street Coming Of Age Quotes

1348 Words | 6 Pages

The main protagonist Esperanza, matures from a childish girl to a young confident woman through many critical and life changing events in the story. Ultimately, the author, Sandra Cisneros implements the symbols of confidence, the house on mango street and the metaphor of shoes to show how Esperanza develops into a more mature state. Sandra Cisneros

Read More

Gender Roles In The House On Mango Street

1476 Words | 6 Pages

In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.

Read More

More about Gender Roles In The House On Mango Street

Related Topics

Open Document