Significance Of The Window In The House On Mango Street

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros is a novel about a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. The young girl’s name is Esperanza, and the novel takes the readers through her journey of growing up during the 1980s. One of the symbols in The House on Mango Street that displays how many women in this novel feel trapped, is the window. The window represents how women can not escape violence and poverty. The novel's initial window belonged to Esperanza's grandmother. The first of many women in The House on Mango Street who live their lives staring out the window and yearning for freedom is her grandmother. Even before she meets the other confined women on Mango Street, Esperanza makes the decision to avoid becoming

The barrier between her and others is language. The novel states that Mamacita spends her days “by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull.” There is no English in her vocabulary, and she only speaks Spanish. To give her and her child a better life, her husband brought them from Mexico. Because of her weight, People in the area frequently make fun of her because of her weight. The neighbors believe that is the reason she doesn't leave the house. Esperanza claims that the truth is that she stays inside because she misses Mexico and doesn't speak English. Mamacita regularly bickers with her spouse despite having a home and wishing she did. She has a difficult time embracing her current location as her home and is ignorant of this. Even though she misses Mexico and does not know English, she can still leave her home. Her resistance, though, keeps her from evolving.. Sitting at her window instead, she misses something that is no longer available to

Rafaela is a woman who is trapped in an apartment drinking papaya and coconut juice every day because her husband says she is beautiful. Her deep longing is like Mamacita's- "She leans out of the window and leans on her elbow and dreams her hair is like Rapunzel's." Rafaela, on the other hand, can't do anything about it, as she is confined to the window by force. Being young, she wants to enjoy herself by getting out and dancing. Instead, she is stuck in her home staring out the window. Presuming that a different man would just trap her even if she escapes her husband, Esperanza says someone else would give her a "sweeter drink." This helps Esperanza realize once again what she doesn’t want. She does not want a man to trap her and imprison her. In order to be free to make her own choices, she wants to be able to make her own