The House On Mango Street Essay

The following will discuss the presentation of female characters in Gregory Nava’s El norte and Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street. The film ‘El Norte’ tells the story of a brother and sister ,Enrique and Rosa, who flee from their home of Guatemala in search of a better life due to government killings and kidnappings after an attempted formation of a workers union by their father. The film gives an indication of the difficulties Spanish speakers had in their own countries and their survival in America. The House on Mango Street , a novel consisting of a series of vignettes tells the story of Esperanza, a young Latina girl, after her family moved to Mango Street, a poor Spanish barrio in Chicago. The story is told through the eyes

This is evident in both The House on Mango Street and El Norte. In the third vignette of The house on Mango street ‘Boys and Girls’ the readers is immediately informed that the division between men and women when referring to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls.”. This male dominance begins at a very young

There are numerous examples of women being presented as victims due to the mistreatment of men. Rafaela is treated as an precious object rather than a human , when her husband goes out she “gets locked indoors as her husband is afraid she will run away since she is too beautiful”, she wishes for a different life and escaping “Rafaela leans out the window and leans on her elbow and dreams her hair is like Rapunzel’s”. The mistreatment of women also seen in in the vignette ‘No Speak English’ , Marmacita is brought from Mexico to live in Chicago ,even though she does not speak English , she sits by the window, listens to Spanish radio, and wishes to go home , however her husband has stated this is not going to happen ,and due to his ‘ownership’ of her , she has to stay with him. When Esperanza begins to spend time with Sally , she beings to hang around with more boys than she would have before. It is not only grown men that see women as an object , it is the young males as well, Esperanza is sexually assaulted against her will as twelve years old. “What he did. Where he touched me, I didn’t want it Sally“. The little reaction to this is worrying. Another disturbing aspect of the mistreatment of women and their vulnerability in the novel is that of Sally. Sally is slightly older than Esperanza. She is the