The House On Mango Street Gender Roles Essay

The Strength to Rise Above Gender Roles on Mango Street 

The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, is a book about the obstacles Latin women encounter while residing on Mango Street. In their community, males dominate and women are treated as if they as inferior. A woman's merit is placed on her outward appearance, as well as her loyalty to the men in her life. Throughout The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros utilizes the first-person frame of reference, portraying her struggle to augment her sexuality in a feminine fashion along with the firmly embedded longing for independence, amongst a community influenced by societal male gender roles. Critical observation is included throughout The House on Mango Street as Cisneros scrutinizes

the women who surround her within a parlous and male-dominated community, where each woman's circumstances are predestined by social as well as economic restrictions. For the large majority of the women living on Mango Street, these limitations are too formidable to conquer. Nevertheless, Esperanza exemplifies the potential to look past her lot in life, while the women surrounding her become victims of their society, continuing its vicious pattern.  
Many gender roles and themes are observable throughout the course of this story, in particular, the single mother role. Constraints inside of the home prevail for the women of Mango Street while in stark contrast, the men enjoy life and their outside social life. Divisions in gender are revealed from the very beginning of the story. For example, in “Boys & Girls,” Esperanza communicates the contrast between herself and her brothers, Kiki and Carlos as she explains that, “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours. My brothers for example. They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls” (Cisneros 8).  Although frequent interactions occur between Esperanza and her sister, Nenny, she is "too young to be [her] friend" (Cisneros 8). As she likens her existence to "a red balloon, a balloon that is tied to an anchor" (Cisneros 9), loneliness overcomes Esperanza as she dreams of a true friend to escape the solitude. In addition, apprehension also overwhelms Esperanza as she fears long-term entrapment on Mango Street, like all the other Latino women. This particular situation demonstrates the first indication of gender issues in the Mango Street community. As Esperanza longs for a best friend, this desire also depicts an early indication of Esperanza's desire for freedom and independence, along with her resilience.  
Esperanza expresses feminine insight in offering a glimpse of what it is like to reside in a society where women are required to be married and remain in the home, paralyzed within the Latino community of Mango Street.

The female characters in The House on Mango Street, endure domineering husbands and fathers, and face adverse conditions while bringing up their offspring. Many of the daughters and women have piteous lives, in particular, those that endure a restrictive life, as they dwell under the authority of their fathers or husbands. For example, in "Linoleum Roses," because Sally is married to an extremely possessive, abusive husband, she is not permitted to look out the window, let alone speak on a telephone. Similarly, Rafaela depicts another woman on Mango Street, who is trapped by her husband. Rafaela's beauty causes her husband to fear that Rafaela might escape, so he locks her in their apartment. Consequently, Rafaela's only recourse is to stare out the window of her apartment. This distinct behavior is commonplace among the women on Mango Street. Cisneros also describes Rosa Vargas, in "There Was an Old Woman She Had So Many Children She Didn't Know What to Do," as another woman trapped on Mango Street. Like many others on Mango Street, Rosa Vargas is forsaken by her husband, merely left to care for her feral and ill-behaved children. Additionally, many of the women on Mango Street marry at a very young age. In particular, Minerva is a young married woman who

happens to share a similarity to Esperanza in a love for writing poetry; however, she is yet another trapped woman who was abandoned by her husband, left to care for their two children. Although the husband does return at times, he consistently leaves breaking her heart. In Minerva's case, her husband threw a rock at her window, threatening no means of escape for Minerva. In contrast to the aforementioned women, Esperanza's independent spirit proves to be frowned upon because it is clear that the Latin community of Mango Street disapproves of strong women.  
In "My Name," Esperanza reveals that her name in the English language means "hope," although in Spanish means "sadness" and "waiting." Esperanza is mindful of "how her name bears an already predetermined sadness...and how her destiny, as a woman, and as a Mexican immigrant, is meant to be a struggle" (Grum 42). Cisneros discloses that the name Esperanza originated with her great-grandmother, and "expresses the awareness of the weight of her heritage, since it was her great-grandmother’s name" (Grum 42). Furthermore, bad luck was intended to be in her future, due to the fact that both Esperanza and her great-grandmother were born in the year of the horse. Nonetheless, Esperanza refuses to accept this as truth considering the horse is strong. However, in Chinese and Mexican culture, the horse is a symbol of weakness. Therefore, this contrast demonstrates the powerful gender struggles in Esperanza's community once again. Esperanza's name prefigures her sadness and desire to escape the community she is trapped in. Furthermore, her name illustrates the hope she holds to tightly. 
In fact, Esperanza describes her great-grandmother as a "wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry" (Cisneros 11).

Unfortunately, her great-grandmother was forced to marry, unable to ever forgive her husband, and spent her life staring out the window, as do so many other women in Esperanza's community. With determination, Esperanza makes clear that she rejects the notion to be like that. She states, "I may have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window" (Cisneros 11). Women who are confined and staring out the window is a pitiful, recurring concept reiterated throughout the course of this story. Furthermore, Esperanza refuses to inherit her great-grandmother's destiny, knowing that to be "like a wild horse" (Cisneros 10) is advantageous. In addition, Esperanza verbalizes that there is no way that she will "accept this heritage passed on by so many women before her, who had to passively watch their lives who had to passively watch their lives pass them by, and perform the tasks that were expected of them" (Grum 43).  Esperanza's mother offers incentive to Esperanza as she "encourages [Esperanza] to try to be the master of her own destiny and amount to something in her life" (Grum 43) because Esperanza's mother knows that she, herself "could've been somebody" (Cisneros 91). A warning is also provided as Esperanza's mother also instructs her that "shame is a bad thing because it keeps you down" (Grum 91). As a result, this drives Esperanza

to come to the realization that "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 quiet war. Simple. Sure. I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back my chair or picking up the plate" (Cisneros 89). 
The men on Mango Street flaunt their "positions of power" (Hartley-Kroeger 284) and "don't like their women strong" (Cisneros 10). Marrying a man on Mango Street feeds the oppression carried out on the women of Mango Street. (Hartley-Kroeger 284). While perpetual physical abuse is commonplace by the men, indicated through Esperanza's rape and the recurring beatings of Sally, these acts enable Esperanza to rise above. She declares a "quiet war" (Cisneros 88), to be "beautiful and cruel...not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for a ball and chain" (Cisneros 88). Moreover, Esperanza is announcing that to obtain freedom she must behave like a male, as the rejection of compliant, subservient behavior will open freedom's door. Esperanza safeguards herself from ensnarement in the same gender roles as the heart-rending ladies inhabiting Mango Street by manifesting the power to overlook the obstacles of society all the while, exuding great strength.