The House On Mango Street Gender Analysis

The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, is a retrospective of the stories and experiences throughout a year in the life of a 12 year old girl named Esperanza. She represents the social constructs a typical young chicana would experience in American society such as classism, sexism, and racism. Cisneros made us aware that these dilemmas are prevalent in modern culture and represent modern society in a way that common people can perceive.
The House on Mango Street portrays social issue of classism. Throughout the book, Esperanza points out the hypocrisy of gender roles that keep her confined. In the vignette “The Family of Little Feet,” Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel, show their shoes to Mr. Benny who works at a convenience store, who says, “Them are dangerous. You girls too young to be wearing shoes like that. Take them off before I call the cops.”(p.41) This shows the negative reaction of males to females expressing their desire to be beautiful. Modern society shames young girls for being “Slutty” because of what they wear, which is still a problem in the society you and I live in. How would you react to seeing an eight year old girl wearing makeup? Your reaction would probably be negative since the concept of makeup is directed towards older women. This shows male power dominance by having girls feeling the need to impress the

Yet Esperanza doesn’t reflect the horrors of the thought police or deal with pro censorship. This is because George Orwell merely wrote the book based upon prediction rather than personal experience he dealt with. The book 1984, however, is based upon the fascism of Nazi Germany. George Orwell does a good job of warning readers of their fate if they don’t value freedom of expression and give it away to controlling authority. The House on Mango Street does a good job of reflecting society based upon personal situations and we must learn from