House On Mango Street Symbols

Throughout The House On Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, many symbols, themes, and motifs appear while analysing the story of Esperanza growing up on Mango Street, a poor neighborhood. Symbols are a very big part of this book, because without deeper consideration of the text, this book would just be a series of dull, unrelated stories. One of the most prominent symbols in this story is the symbol of shoes representing our main character, Esperanza, maturing and adjusting into womanhood and her sexuality.
The first example of shoes comes in the chapter, in “The Family of Little Feet”. A young Esperanza and her two neighborhood friends, Rachel and Lucy, are given a bag of shoes, with high heels and other nice shoes. The try them on and parade

around the neighborhood, showing off the shoes. ”Rachel says yes, and Lucy says yes, and yes I say, these are the best shoes. We will never go back to wearing the other kind again”(41). They are very happy about the response the shoes are giving them. But later on in the chapter, they have an encounter with a bum who offers a dollar for a kiss from Rachel. The kids run away and hide the shoes under the back porch until her mother throws them away, but no one complains. While at first they enjoyed the attention, they soon realized they were not ready to be seen as a woman, or in a sexual light.
As Esperanza gets older, more examples of shoes arise.

In the chapter “Chanclas”, Esperanza goes to a cousin's baptism party. Shes gets a new dress, and socks, but she has to wear her old school saddle shoes to the party. She notes how big and clunky they are, and denies a boy a dance, out of embarrassment for her shoes. She then stuffs her feet under her chair “My feet growing bigger and bigger”(47). Later her uncle drags her up to dance, and she stop worrying about her ordinary shoes, having a good time. Her Uncle tells her she is the prettiest girl here. Shoes show up in this chapter when Esperanza is asked to dance by a boy, but she is too uncomfortable in her shoes. Again shoes are present at an uncomfortable moment with a boy as she

matures.
Shoes are seen in the chapter “Sally”.

Sally is the prettiest girl at Esperanza's school, and one of Esperanza's friends. She has pretty black suede shoes that Esperanza envies. What Esperanza really envies is Sally sexual maturity, which is why she wants the suede shoes. Her next story with Sally, “The Monkey Garden” continues to emphasize this symbol. Sally and Esperanza are at the neighborhood garden when Sally starts talking to some boys. They take her keys and tells Sally she has to kiss them to get them back. Sally agrees and Esperanza runs to an adult, who doesn't seem to care. Esperanza then grabs some large sticks and a brick to fight. “But when I got there Sally said go home. Those boys said leave us alone. I felt stupid with my brick. They all looked at me as if I was the one that was crazy”(pg 97). Esperanza doesn't understand what is going on, and runs to the other side of the garden. She cries herself to sleep under a tree. When she wakes up she ends the chapter saying “I looked at my feet in their white socks and ugly round shoes. They seemed far away. They didn't seem to be my feet anymore. And the garden that had been such a good place to play didn't seem mine either”(pg 98). Esperanza doesn't recognize her feet because those are the feet of a child, the child she used to be. This event is when Esperanza realizes that she can't play in the garden anymore, or be a child. She needs to grow up, mentally and

emotionally.
Finally, in “A House of My Own”, Esperanza describes her dream house. In that house she has her shoes right by her bed, showing that at least in her imagination, she controls or will control her sexuality.
To conclude, the presence of shoes in The House On Mango Street are a prominent symbol of Esperanza’s sexual maturity and her battle with growing into womanhood, from the first time she linked shoes with sex in “The Family of Little Feet”, to her shoes by her nightstand in her dream house in “A House of My Own”.