Feminism in House on Mango Street
Sandra Cisneros writes feminist vignettes.
Esperanza’s great grandmother, her Aunt Guadalupe, her friend Alicia, and the Three Sisters, who are united as one force when described as being the mythological Fates, water the four skinny trees of Esperanza’s female empowerment.
Self Determination against the Patriarchy
Esperanza says, “When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at the trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete.” (75). All four women “send their ferocious roots beneath the ground” (74) with such a fury demonstrating their forceful convictions inspiring personal discovery.
According to Nancy Zuercher, Esperanza’s great-grandmother inspires Esperanza’s self-determination as she learns to avoid the path of her great-grandmother who was “initially a strong woman, [but] became passive because of male subjugation.” (Zuercher 1).
Setting the Example: Esperanza's Great Grandmother
Comparing herself to her great-grandmother who had the same name, Esperanza says “she was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse---which is suppose to be a bad thing if you are born female…the Mexicans don’t like their women strong” (10). Female freedom and empowerment symbolized as a horse ties in the natural world where maverick-like characteristics are strapped down by the reigns of a male dominated society. Therefore, describing the women’s specific year of birth through a species suggests that nature liberates a woman. The comparison to the animal connotes rebelliousness and unruliness in her personality. Esperanza associates with the horse, defining her identity by intertwining the natural world in her perception of herself.
Esperanza’s great-grandmother was wild and never wanted to marry, but her great-grandfather “threw a sack over her head and carried her off… as if she were a fancy chandelier” (11). Esperanza recognizes the consequences of being strong-willed in a male dominant community; she sees the near impossibility of female independence in her culture. A man is ultimately going to own her like a piece of property. Exposed early on to the struggle women undertake and are vulnerable to, she learns to avoid dependence on men. That dependence on men, as seen in her neighborhood, confines women to the domestic realm.
Renaming Finds Power
Esperanza empathizes with the women who “looked out the window [their] whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow” (11), but promises herself that she will not inherit her great-grandmother’s spot by the window like she inherits her name. To avoid that possible legacy, Esperanza takes the initiative to baptize herself as “Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X” to ensure that she will not let a man harness her strong “horse” characteristics (11). By renaming herself, she also facilitates her inner expression as critic Elaine Showalter remarks, “The act of unnaming and self-naming have long been fundamental to cultural identity and self-assertion” (Zuercher 2). Esperanza takes her first step to discovering her self-proclaimed identity. Choosing her own name, Esperanza refuses to let a man control her fate, and her ability to progress beyond the community that hinders a woman from fully actualizing herself.
Mangoes
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