Interpersonal growth is influenced by a combination of internal and external factors. An individual’s transition from childhood to adulthood (bildungsroman) is influenced by family and community but also by internal values and ideas. Often, these external factors influence the internal factors.
In House on Mango Street, Cisneros highlights how Esperanza’s coming-ofage is influenced by her community by juxtaposing stereotypical ambitions of Mexican-American girls with Esperanza’s dreams and hopes for her life, and revealing Esperanza’s coming-of-age through a series of awakenings The vignettes “Marin” and “Sally” show stereotypical ambitions of Mexican-American girls. Though Marin, on the surface, seems to represent a free-spirit, she is confined by stereotypical views society has for her and she, in turn, has for herself.
Esperanza holds Marin in high regards for her knowledge of sexuality. Marin, for example, knows about pregnancy and shaving. Marin’s precocious sexual maturity does not indicate her promiscuity but, rather, reveals her fundamental lack of independence. Sexulity is a learned trait, something Marin grew up observing on TV, in romance magazines, and from other girls in her community. From the start of the vignette, Marin’s ambitions are clear — she is looking for a magical key to leave mango street; that key is love.
Though Marin claims that love will allow her to leave Mango Street, these ambitions tie her down like an anchored balloon. Marin is waiting “for the boys to see us and for us to see them” (27). By contrasting these two characteristics in Marin, freedom and confinement, Cisneros is showing the role Marin’s community has had on her. For example, Cisneros illustrates the juxtaposition of Marin’s trapped “free-spirit,” when Marin is dancing in the street; however, when Esperanza observes that, “[Marin] waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life” (27), this creates an irony.
Though Marin seems free-spirited, she is dependent of love. Marin is passive and naive. Similarly, Cisneros creates a parallel between Marlin and Sally. Again, though simply free-spirited on the surface, both Marin and Sally are like a balloon tied down to an anchor. In the beginning of the vignette “Sally,” rumors circulate regarding Sally’s promiscuity, but Esperanza chooses to think of Sally as a kindred spirit and a daydreamer, who like her, dreams of escaping the neighborhood.
Though Esperanza thinks that Sally is like the women in the movies, beautiful with “red red lips who is beautiful and cruel” (81), who imprases her secuality while remaining indpenedent, by “drives the men crazy and laughs them all away” (81), Sally is not like interested only in driving boys crazy and then laughing them away. Instead, she finds safety and comfort in sex. Sally choses the comfortable, safe and unknown way out of Mango Street: through marriage. Unlike the women in the movies who “has her own power”(81), and “will not give it away” (81), Sally is just as passive and naive as Marin and the other women from Mango Street.
Like Marin, she wishes to be taken away by a man. The vignette introduces a metaphor between leaning, women, and windows. For example, Esperanza’s long-dead great-grandmother married unwillingly and spent her whole life sitting sadly by her window. Similarly, Sally leans against the fence at school and doesn’t talk to anyone. Later, when Sally marries, she “leans out her windows all day and look down onto the street” (81). Sally, leans, out of her situation, her trapped marriage, but is never able to leave the house or leave Mango Street.
Rather, Sally becomes like the other women of the street, where each keeps to her place by the window without much complaint. Nenny represents a rejection of stereotypical ambitions. In the vignette “Beautiful and Cruel,” Nenny rejects the idea of “waiting for someone to change her life” (27). Esperanza states that unlike other women who leave Mango Street by getting pregnant, Neny is “unwilling to go that way” (88). Instead, Nenny is unwilling wait around for a husband and rejects the notion escaping difficulties by growing up too quickly.
This idea is a contrast to what was talked about with Sally and Marin. Unlike Marin and Sally, who observe stereotypical actions and ambitions and follow them naively, Nenny is more observive. In this way, Nenny is truly the most free-spirited character. This creates an irony. Though Nenny is the youngest character, Nenny is often the only character to exhibits original ideas. Though Esperanza sees Nenny as an annoyance and tries to rejects the similarities she has with her sister, Nenny and Esperanza are similar is one aspect: they are both dreamers.
What they dream about is the characteristic that separates the two. While Esperanza dreams of escaping her neighborhood, Nenny embraces Mango Street and leans to manage her world by turning Mango Street into a place where she can be happy. For example, in an earlier vignette, Nenny sees shapes in the clouds instead of people from Mango Street like their friends Lucy and Rachel. Thus, she has her own way of surviving Mango Street. In the vignette “Alicia and I Sitting on the Steps,” Alicia shows Esperanza that even though she may someday leave Mango Street, it will always be apart of her.
Though Esperanza is ashamed of where she lives, saying “I never had a house” (107), Alicia explains that Esperanza “is Mango Street” (107). Though Esperanza is driven by her interval values, her family and community are apart of her and have helped shaped who she has become. In the last section of the vignette, Esperanza state that she will not come back to Mango Street until “somebody makes it better” (107). Alicia asks Esperanza who’s going to make it better. The mayor? The thought of the mayor coming to Mango Street makes Esperanza laugh, as she knows the mayor will never do anything to help the people of Mango Street.
Through this conversation, Esperanza realizes that she cannot be passive. No one will come; she cannot “wait for someone. ” Instead, if she wants Mango Street to change, has a responsibility to her home and community to come back and make it happen. The four vignettes analyzed illustrates a series of Esperanza’s awakening. At the core is Esperanza’s struggle to define herself. As Esperanza learns to define herself as a woman in a community that lacks strong female values, her perception of her identity changes. For example, Esperanza learns about sexuality and her identity as a women. Marin represents naivety in sexuality.
Though Esperanza is first curious and holds Marin in high esteem because she “knows lots of things [about] sexuality” (27), her perception of sexuality in relation to her community changes. Similarly, though Sally seems to represent the “beautiful and cruel,” Esperanza realizes Sally is not like the women in movies. Sally is an independent but a dependent of love. As Esperanza observes other women in the neighborhood and the marriages that bind them, is realizes that women cannot be both “beautiful and cruel” in a maledominated society; Marin and Sally are both trapped by the naivety of love.
Furthermore, even though Nenny rejects the stereotypical notions of escaping through marriage or getting pregnant, Nenny still chooses to make the best of Mango Street. Esperanza, in contrast, wants to leave Mango Street all together. Esperanza is determined not to become a woman sitting by a window, choosing to ” not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain” (90). Unlike her mother who “could’ve been somebody” (90), she chooses to be somebody.
She chooses to not be passive. Though most women choose to be either trapped in marriages that keep them on Mango Street or tied down by their children, she chooses autonomy over sexuality, and through poetry and writing, Esperanza gains a sense of herself. Though these series of awakenings, Esperanza finally realizes that writing is what will keep her strong and independent. Though Esperanza transition from childhood to adulthood is influenced by her family and community, her internal values and ideas also play a critical role.
This contrast of external and internal values is shown throughout the novel by juxtaposing stereotypical ambitions of Mexican-American girls with Esperanza’s dreams and hopes for her life. Esperanza becomes more aware of her surroundings, she struggles to remain her own person in a community that often forces women to stay home with children and submit to their husbands. Writing becomes central Esperanza’s identity at the end of the novel. And writing is something she searches for throughout the book.
Esperanza’s main struggle is between her dissatisfied with the lives women in her neighborhood generally lead what kind of future she wants for herself. Though she leans toward several different options, the intelligent and demure Alicia, and the sultry, rebellious Sally, naive and love sick Marin, and her annoying but independent sister, she finally decides that what she really wants is to be independent. Yet, she also learns that Mango Street will always be apart of her and that she will always be connected to her community. Esperanza learn that is from Mango Street; yet, Mango Street does not define who she is.
