The House On Mango Street Gender Roles

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What exactly makes a woman a woman or a man a man? Is it clothing, hair length, job or purposes? In The House On Mango Street, the author, Sandra Cisneros, constructs the idea of gender roles; based on the life of a young latina girl named Esperanza, living in Chicago during 1984. The author does this using examples of the effects of gender roles. Also, the concepts related to gender roles in The House on Mango Street show up in our current lifestyles. To begin, in The House On Mango Street, Cisneros describes how her grandmother is affected by gender roles. On page 11, the text states, “...my great grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier...She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.”. This text reveals how gender roles impact one character’s life detrimentally. The grandfather of main character Esperanza regards Esperanza’s grandmother as an item, and thus leads a sad life, as most women do. …show more content…

On pages 88 to 89, the novel reads, “My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settles and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain..I have begun my own quiet war...I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.”. This quote expresses how Esperanza leaves gender roles behind. She chooses not to proceed as how people think she should be (as a female): as in, polite, clean, settled and

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