Control In House On Mango Street

Seeking Control

In the poor slums of Chicago, a family living in poverty struggles to get by. In the book, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Esperanza is a twelve year old girl who lives with her family in the Windy City. She lives with her three siblings and both parents on Mango Street. Esperanza has no control over her life and family’s poverty. People who have no control over their life desperately seek change. Esperanza seeks to change her name, her home, and her destiny as a way to control her life.

A name given to a person at birth is out of his or her control. Esperanza had no choice in the name she was given. Changing her name would give her some control. People always struggle to pronounce Esperanza’s name. The kids pronounce it funny and Esperanza notices “at school they say my name funny as if the

syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth” (Cisneros 11). No one understands what her name means and Esperanza shows her disappointment by saying, “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters” (10). Esperanza says, “I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (11). Changing her name would be a way for Esperanza to control her own life.
Children have no power in deciding where they want to live.

Esperanza wishes she could change where she lives. Even though Esperanza moved to a nicer house, she still does not like the house on Mango Street. Esperanza’s parents made the house they were moving to seem luxurious. Upon arrival, Esperanza realized “the house of Mango Street is not the way they told it at all. It’s small and red with tight steps in front and windows so small you’d think they were holding their breath” (4). Even though the house on Mango Street is an improvement, it is still not good enough for Esperanza. Esperanza says, “I knew I had to have a house. A real house. One I could point to. But this isn’t. the house on Mango Street isn’t it” (5). She dreams of one day having a bigger and better house. The new and improved house will be a place for others to come and stay, “some days after dinner, guests and I will sit in front of a fire. Floorboards will squeak upstairs. The attic grumble. Rats? They’ll ask. Bums I’ll say, and I’ll be happy” (87). Dreaming of moving to a new house not only gives Esperanza the feeling of control and independence, but makes her

blissful.
Destiny is malleable and not set in stone like many things in a child’s life. Esperanza wishes to take advantage of the unknown future. She has decided to “not grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain” (88). Esperanza’s destiny is hers and hers alone to control. Women in the movies influence Esperanza’s need for change, “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” (89). These women show the possibility of being in control over men. Esperanza has no control over men and wants to be in charge over them.
No matter how much a person changes, she’ll always remember her past and the paths she took to change. As the nun said, “when you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are” (105). People can always change themselves and make improvements in their lives, but it is vital to remember the paths it took to get there. Remembering the past makes a person humble and teaches her to never take even the simplest things for granted.