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

was able to write so strongly about characters like Esperanza is because she had "lived it". She spent much of her childhood moving from house to house, not being able to maintain many friendships, and, as a result spent much of her time alone and away from her seven other siblings like Esperanza. Similar to Esperanza's parents, Cisneros' parents worked primarily labor-based jobs.
“It was not until this moment when I separated myself, when I considered myself truly distinct, that my writing acquired a voice.” ~Sandra Cisneros
The struggle for uniqueness is a common theme in a coming-of-age novel and in The House on Mango Street, Esperanza’s struggle to define herself is present in her every action and encounter.

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

is.
In the book, Esperanza’s goals are clear: she wants to escape her neighborhood and live in a house of her own. “One day I’ll own my own house, but I won’t forget who I am or where I came from” (Cisneros 87). These ambitions are always in her mind, but as she begins to mature, the desire for boys appears in her thoughts as well. Most of the women Esperanza meets are either trapped in marriages that keep them on Mango Street or tied down by their children. Esperanza decides she does not want to be like these women, but her dire observations of married life do not erase her thoughts for neighborhood boys.
Esperanza decides she’ll combine sexuality with autonomy by being “beautiful and cruel” like Sally and the women in movies.

“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

her the legitimate new identity she’s been searching for. Writing promises to help her leave Mango Street emotionally, and possibly physically as well.
The House on Mango Street contains many small poems and references to poems, which emphasize the importance of language to Esperanza and her neighbors. These references and poems include a poem Esperanza writes, jump-roping chants, and simple, internal rhymes within paragraphs of the text. Many of the poems are not recited to the reader, such as those Esperanza recites to Ruthie, or those Minerva writes. The abundance of poetry suggests that the women and girls on Mango Street try to make their lives better by describing the world with beautiful language.
“I want to be
like the waves on the sea,
like the clouds in the wind,
but I’m me.
One day I’ll jump
out of my skin.
I’ll shake the sky
like a hundred violins”(Cisneros 60-61).
The novel itself, with its many internal rhymes, is in some ways Esperanza’s long poem, her attempt to make some of the unpoetic aspects of her life less hard and more ordered through poetry.
In conclusion, the three key ideas of name and home ownership, gender roles in culture and society, and education provide her knowledge and experience with adversity to guide her on her quest to create a unique self-identity. Though each concept has its own impact on how Esperanza wants to achieve her own idea of success, together they provide a base upon which she can assemble her own identity.