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Stereotypes In The House On Mango Street

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As Beyoncé Knowles says, ‘girls run the world’. But without the revolution of women’s rights over the past 50 years, all women would still be expected to marry, have children, and become a housewife. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros perfectly projects the struggles of a young minority woman in the late 1900s. The struggles are portrayed through Esperanza, the main character, as well as her female role models in her community. Esperanza’s family lives in poverty and Esperanza strives to rise above. As Esperanza matures through her teenage years, she is exposed to how women are perceived and treated in her culture and community. Esperanza’s encounters with reality while growing up as a female demonstrates that gender expectations were meant to be broken. She matures to be a young woman in power …show more content…

This is credited to her multi-faceted career: clothing lines, a water company, fragrance lines, and being the world’s shiniest superstar. She does not conform to society’s stereotypes of women in the world of business, music, and fashion. Esperanza shows persevering determination through her teenage years as she struggles to find power in society. She interprets her sexual assault as things not being the way they should be, referring not only to sex, but the world: men in power. While her culture and community clash against her in her journey to find power, she loses her ground every now and then. But she looks to the four skinny trees in front of her house on Mango Street for inspiration when she needs the strength to keep persevering. She says she is ‘tired of looking at things we can’t have’ (Cisneros 86). She breaks through the gender barrier, as the trees do the concrete, and grasps power, and eventually changing the way her culture and community perceives and treats women. Esperanza is a diva. And a diva is the female version of a hustler (Diva - Beyoncé

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