The Transformation Of Esperanza In The House On Mango Street

In Chicago, there is a fictional street named “Mango Street.” During her year on Mango Street, Esperanza, selfish and innocent at first, loses her childhood and gains maturity. She experiences change, death, and racism. She is forced and controlled because of her gender. She goes from wanting to leave to vowing to come back. During the year she lived on Mango Street, Esperanza changed in many different ways.
At the beginning of the book, all Esperanza wants to do is leave Mango Street. She is excluded by everybody at school. They make fun of her name. “At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth.” She is not part of the community yet. The kids at school don’t even care enough about her

She sees how the loss of someone you care about can make someone a shell of themselves first when her father lost his dad. “Está muerto, and then as if he just heard the news himself, crumples like a coat and cries, my brave Papa cries.” Her father, usually so composed and brave, is now weak and grieving because he lost somebody close to him. Esperanza does not want to ever lose someone close to her, especially her own Papa. Esperanza also loses someone close to her, someone who listened to her, her aunt Lupe. “And then she died, my aunt who listened to my poems. And then we began to dream the dreams.” She believes it is her fault that her aunt is dead, and feels haunted. She feels bad because she did something bad to someone who cared about her, somebody who listened to her. Esperanza is haunted by death and tries to uphold her aunt’s last wish for her by

She first sees that boys would take advantage of girls in “The Monkey Garden”. “They seemed far away. They didn’t seem to be my feet anymore. And the garden that had been such a good place to play didn’t seem mine either.” She sees the world in a whole new way after realizing women's roles in her society, after seeing the boys take advantage of Sally, and how the adult didn’t even care. Then, in the chapter “Red Clowns”, Esperanza is raped. She sees how the boy did not ask for her consent and did things she did not want. She did not know what was going to happen, because she was lied to. “It wasn’t what you said at all. What he did. Where he touched me. I didn’t want it, Sally.” Esperanza knows that in her society, women do not have a choice. Sally, who seemed so independent, tried to escape by depending on men. She wants to never depend on men, and instead be like Alicia. She depends only on herself, and that is why she can leave Mango