The House On Mango Street Theme Essay

In the story, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros develops the theme of issues related to gender heirarchy. Throughout the book the reader is shown that the girls and young women are meant to look for a husband or make themselves appealing for men. In the vignette of “The Family of Little Feet”, Esperanza tells the reader about a family that has small feet. She describes the grandpa’s, grandma’s, baby’s, and mother’s feet. The mother hands Rachel, Lucy, and Esperanza a bag with three pairs of shoes in it. “One pair of lemon shoes and one red and one pair of dancing shoes that used to be white but were now a pale blue”(Cisneros 40). All the girls are very excited to learn how to walk in these fancy new shoes that they just received

Sally was beaten by her father earlier in the book and left Esperanza alone at the fair when a big boy came and took Sally. While she was waiting for Sally a guy grabbed Esperanza's arm and said that he loved her and kissed her so, Esperanza isn't friends with Sally anymore. Here Esperanza tells the reader that Sally, her old friend, got married. Sally claims she is in love and that she likes being married. She says “She is happy, except sometimes her husband gets angry… though most days he is okay. Except he won't let her talk on the telephone. And he doesn't let her look out the window. And he doesn't like her friends, no nobody visits her unless he is working”(101-102). This shows how much power men have other their wives who get married before eighth grade because society tells them that they need a man to become successful. We can see that Sandra Cisneros displays the theme of gender hierarchy in The House on Mango Street when she tells us about how the young girls dress to impress older man. In Addition, when we find out that girls become married before eighth grade and end up being powered by their husband for the rest of their