House On Mango Street Women

The argument of women's role in society is an argument that is largely rooted in the history of mankind. In the book, “The House on Mango Street”, Sandra Cisneros explores this topic though the main character Esperanza who is in search for her place in Mango Street and the trials and tribulations of getting by in her world. In the book Cisneros indicates that the biggest obstacle that women face in mango street is women's dependence on men. Cisneros explore this topic through the many women in mango street; these women act an outlook on the future for Esperanza.
One of the females that Esperanza shows this dependence through is Esperanza’s grandmother. In the vignette, “My Name”, Esperanza talks of her grandmother, who was forced into marriage

The vignette is supposed to represent a loss of innocence for Esperanza and we can see this through the word choice and imagery that Cisneros invokes. This can be seen though the way Esperanza describes the garden, it starts off with “There were dizzy bees and bow-tied fruit flies turning somersaults and humming in the air. Sweet sweet peach trees”, but as Esperanza keeps talking it gets more morbid talking about “Thorn roses”, “rotting wood”, and “Dead cars”. Cisneros uses this word choice to foreshadow the loss of innocence that Esperanza will face as she will learn of exactly how women have to depend on men. In the vignette after Sally is forced to kiss some boys to get her keys back Esperanza tries to save her, but meets embarrassment as she states “But when i got their Sally said go home. Those boys said leave us alone. I felt stupid with my brick”(97) . Cisneros expresses that the role of women is to be dependent on men and the experience that she faces when she tries to save Sally shows that. Sally considers how the boys treat her as normal, and the act of Esperanza trying to save her as unorthodox. Sally is one of the few “friends” that Esperanza seems to make and later in the novella Cisneros talks of her