Women In The House On Mango Street

In “The House on Mango Street” gender socialization is a major theme incorporated throughout the novel. Accordingly, Esperanza expresses her own feminist views through her storytelling of her female friends and role models that are in her life. These women help Esperanza build her own identity through giving her awareness of what is expected of women and therefore helping her embrace women empowerment and the breaking of gender roles.

Steve Maraboli quoted “The empowered woman is powerful beyond measure and beautiful beyond description,” however in the novel The House on Mango Street, women do not believe it and men do not respect it. The women in this story are frequently being exploited by the men and often noticed for just their beauty. However, the women do nothing to stop the men from doing so. Especially the married women, they tend to just do whatever their husband commands without confrontation or sticking up for themselves. They continue to let it happen despite the fact they know it is not how they would choose to live. Sandra Cisneros displays that women are taken advantage of by the men, however, they restrict themselves for prevent it from happening.

For example, in the book The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls is forced into a friendship by her mother with Billy Deel, who was an extremely forceful child, and Jeannette attempts to befriend him due to him being seemingly harmless towards her. Consequently, Jeannette is harassed by Billy Deel because he wanted her to be in a sexual relationship with him;however, she refused to engage him sexually. In effect, Billy Deel begins to spread rumors about Jeannette and, as a final decision to have real news about Jeannette, attempts to rape her. As a result, Jeannette comes to despise Billy Deel for everything he did to her and decides to cut ties with him completely. All in all, due to Billy Deel’s forcefulness and inappropriate actions towards Jeanette, she decides that she rather stop being with him because she uncovered his true deceitful personality instead of his

In all aspects of life, women are pressured to be someone they are not. They are put in situations that force them to chose a path of life. In “The House on Mango Street”, Esperanza is forced to think about leaving Mango Street in the future, because she is surrounded by women who are pushing her to become an adult.

  The novels The House on Mango Street (Cisneros 1984) and Woman Hollering Creek (Cisneros 1992) relate the new American through the eyes of Cisneros. The women in both novels are caught in the middle of their ethnic identity and their American identity, thus creating the "New American." Cisneros moved between Mexico and the United States often while growing up, thus making her feel "homeless and displaced" (Jones and Jorgenson 109).

The theme of a patriarchal society where beauty is a weakness and having too much of it only means darkness is very prominent in Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street. Esperanza, the protagonist of the numerous vignettes, highlights how this affects the young women on Mango Street.

“The boys and the girls live in separate worlds.” - House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Boys and girls are expected to take different roles in Esperanza’s life, simply because of our gender. This theme in the House On Mango Street appears more than once. As it seems in Esperanza’s point of view marriage has to take place because of the typical stereotype; get married, have kids, and etc. Everyone has a different perspective of our world, and what they want to do in the future often influenced by culture, religion and those around us. Not just one specific gender has to dominate. But each person has to take on a role, for their lives. But honestly gender doesn’t mean anything, it just puts you in a category; man or woman?

Society has built a role for women. And there’s no better example of this idea than The House on Mango Street, in which Esperanza describes specific moments of her life which lead her to believe in women independence and feminism. She has different ideas and thoughts on the definition of women and what they should be. Esperanza doesn’t fit into the constructed definition Mango Street has of how women should be.

When I grow up, I want to be a black gum tree. Black gum trees are known for their internal strength. Instead of dwelling on outward beauty, they spend more time focusing on their inner growth and developing their core. Only after they have achieved this goal can they produce beautiful fruits that draw animals near to them. Any surfaces that the berries touch are stained as to say, “I was here and made a permanent difference.” After they have utilized their outward influences, they use their internal scars and hollow places to protect the animals surrounding around it. If human lives were to reflect the concepts of the black gum tree, governments, individuals, and communities would be radically transformed. While this is a beautiful image,

When first coming to this country as a Hispanic American you may face a lot of difficulties and find more problems than the average white American. Hispanic people go through different adversities and have trouble overcoming them. In The House on Mango Street the main character Esperanza is the one that narrates the story, she explains what it is like to live on Mango Street. She shows the readers that living on Mango Street is perceived as a terrible area, if one were looking from the outside in. But those that live there feel that they live in fair living conditions. The fact is most of the people who live on Mango Street don 't know what it 's like to live outside of mango street. In the story, they show a lifestyle that most Hispanic people deal with especially the ones that come to America and have to figure out how to make ends meet. In The House on Mango Street, the novel has many themes and problems, such as gender inequality, stereotypes, and language barriers. With short stories like "Aria" and "the myth of Latin Woman," a solution is always found. Sometimes there is a simple solution and other times, it is not so easy to find, or there 's just no solution to solving the characters problems and they are still trying to look for results.

In the novel, The House On Mango Street, women face numerous challenges in their lives. Women face abuse, objectification, and oppression. They are also subjects to the societal roles that hinders them from being free and successful. Cisneros utilizes metaphors to reveal the theme of society’s gender roles restricting the lives and sexuality of women.

Mark Haddon once said, “Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.” Although, there are many children's adventure books, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cineros is the best by far. The book is intriguing, funny, heart-warming and full of adventure. The book paints a vivid picture of Esperanza and her family living in their new house on Mango Street. Sadly, the house doesn’t meet up to Esperanza’s expectations, but she learns to adjust to her new home. The character of Esperanza in The House on Mango Street expresses the difficulty, adventure, friendships, and maturity in her lifestyle. While living on Mango Street, Esperanza faced many challenges. She acclimated to the consistent move from place to place with her family. In The House on Mango Street page.3, it says, “But what I remember most is moving a lot.” Esperanza moved about four times before moving on Mango Street. She transitions from apartment to apartment, but now her family finally has a home they can call their own. Unfortunately, the house isn’t the house Esperanza dreamed of or seen on T.V. It wasn’t the luxurious three bathrooms, big flat screen television, and large backyard kind of house. This house was small, red with tight steps and small yard. The red bricks are crumbling, the door was swollen, and everyone shared bedroom. Currently, the house accommodates six people: Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, Esperanza and her sister, Nenny. Learning to adjust to her new home,

For decades, the social stereotype of women hindering their rights to stay home and act as the caretaker has been widely accepted in various cultures and civilizations. Today, many individuals fight to renew women’s rights and dissolve this stereotype, yet it is still prevalent amongst society. This issue is so relevant that many literary works have incorporated the idea into their theme. Throughout Sandra Cisneros’ novel The House on Mango Street, the idea of a woman by the window is repeatedly mentioned and symbolizes the belief that women cannot reach their full potential and are left watching life’s possibilities pass them by.

Coming-of-age, the transition between childhood and adulthood, is a confusing and difficult time of discovering oneself. Prejudice from others based on race, gender, or economic status only makes growing up more challenging. Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street experience the ideological maturity toward womanhood while encountering problems most do not face until adulthood. Living in conservative Alabama where racial tension is high, Scout must learn to be compassionate when her father Atticus Finch defends African-American Tom Robinson against a white woman. Growing up on Mango Street, an impoverished neighborhood of Chicago, Esperanza faces being a poor, colored girl in a world meant for rich, white men. The girls must learn to overcome the classist, racist, and sexist societies surrounding them as they come-of-age. Scout and Esperanza learn to understand and overcome the hypocrisy in racial and gender standards; however, Scout learns to understand others’ perspectives of the world through her encounters with classism and racism whereas Esperanza learns to be autonomous despite challenges from her ethnicity and the impetus to rely on sexuality.

Feminist Criticism is described as literary criticism to presents different perspectives on how literature discusses issues of gender, focusing on education, financial and social difference in a male dominated society. Critics revolve around power relation between the two genders. They also review how females are represented in different texts and literature and how such representation is sufficient. In addition, feminist critics in politics present literature that seeks to raise consciousness about the important role of women and highlight how language is misused to marginalize women. Influential figures of this form of criticism are George Eliot and Margaret Fuller. They are two who mainly came up with the idea of Feminist Criticism and the basic principles followed by others today. Some famous authors who wrote through the lens of Feminist Criticism are Ellen Moers, Alice Walker, and Tillie Olsen... These writer’s focus on inequality between women and men. Many stories have been written using this thought process as the catalysts for the work.