Gender Roles In The House On Mango Street By Sandra Cisneros

The House on Mango Street

Many forces and ideas affect how Esperanza achieves a self-identity. The first is her name, which gives her a means of setting goals, and motivates her through the perception of other's opinions of her. The second is the gender roles found in her society, and how she learns the common role of women as housewives, and discovers why she wants to seek an independent lifestyle. The last is the importance of education, not only for its immediate worth, but the ethic she derives for having to work to provide her own education. It is these three concepts that guide Esperanza to achieve a unique self-identity.

It is clear there is a stark similarity between the author of this book Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros stated that she

Esperanza must define herself both as a woman and as an artist, and her view of her identity changes over the course of the novel. In the beginning of the novel Esperanza wants to change her name in order to define herself on her own terms, instead of accepting a name that expresses her family heritage. “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (Cisneros 11). She wants to separate herself from her parents and her younger sister in order to create her own life, and changing her name seems to her an important step in that direction. Later, after she becomes more sexually aware, Esperanza would like to be “beautiful and cruel” so that boys will like her but not hurt her, and she pursues that goal by becoming friends with Sally. After she is assaulted, she doesn’t want to define herself as “beautiful and cruel” anymore, and she is, once again, unsure of who she

“In the movies, there is always one with red red lips who is beautiful and cruel. She is the one who drives the men crazy and laughs them all away. Her power is her own. She will not give it away” (Cisneros 89). However, Esperanza finds out that being “beautiful and cruel” is impossible in her male-dominated society when she experiences sexual assault. In her dreams about being with Sire, Esperanza is always in control, but in her encounter with the boys who assault her, she has no power whatsoever. The assault makes Esperanza realize that achieving true freedom won’t be possible if she pursues relationships with the boys in her neighborhood. She puts aside her newfound sexual awareness, rejoins Lucy and Rachel, her less sexually mature friends, and spends her time concentrating on writing instead of on boys. She chooses, for the present, autonomy over sexuality, which gives her the best chance of escape.

Eventually, Esperanza decides she does not need to set herself apart from the others in her neighborhood or her family heritage by changing her name, and she stops forcing herself to develop sexually, which she isn’t fully ready for. She accepts her place in her community and decides that the most important way she can define herself is as a writer. As a writer, she observes and interacts with the world in a way that sets her apart from non-writers, giving