As far as I’m concerned, The House on Mango Street is a book about the need to escape. Throughout the book, the narrator expresses, through various metaphors and direct allusions, her desire to be free and to escape from this miserable life in this poor neighborhood of Chicago. What does Esperanza want to escape from? The book begins with a description of her intense disappointment at the discovery of her new home on Mango Street. Throughout the book, Esperanza expresses her desire to escape the poverty and detrimental living conditions associated with her home. In addition, she wants to escape from the neighborhood in which she lives, frequently expressing her feeling that she does not belong there (even though she expresses her attachment to her community). Last but not least, Esperanza wants to escape the “traditional” patriarchal roles that oppressed Chicana women. To clarify this point, I think it is important to point out that most of the chapters begin with a female character’s name and that most of the book describes in negative terms the events that happen to these women. Every female character is trapped by abusive husband or father. It is interesting to note that Esperanza describes different ways for women to achieve their freedom, but not all of them are conclusive. One of the possible ways would be the possibility for beautiful girls/women to marry a man. However, in all cases, for example in the case of Sally, they try through this marriage to escape from a reality of misery (because of poverty or physical abuse) but end up trapped in similar conditions. In the end, by creating her own story, Esperanza creates her own solution to escape this trap. Two quotes from the book struck me. The first is on page 89: “I have begun my own quiet war. Simple. Sure, I am one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the char or picking up the plate”. The other is page 108: “Not a flat. Not an apartment in back. Not a man’s house. Not a daddy’s. A house all my own. With […] My books and my stories”. These two sentences clearly define the message of the book. If the woman wants to escape the traditional expectations of gender roles, she must take her own destiny into her own hands and break this dependency on the male figure.
Even more interestingly, Esperanza describes the means by which she expresses her desire to escape. I noticed that the window metaphor is recurrent throughout the book. The window symbolizes the trap in which all the women in the book are stuck, because of their violent partners, but at the same time it represents their deep desire to escape from this reality. Another omnipresent symbol is that of the trees whose “only reason is to be and to be”. The trees represent Esperanza’s desire to get out of this dependency by herself and for herself. Finally, her books, stories and poems are a practical way to escape her reality and express who she really is.
(I should precise that I am writing this post at Amsterdam airport (my second Paris-Lyon flight has been cancelled and replaced by 2 other flights Paris-Amsterdam and Amsterdam-Lyon) and I have not slept more than 24 hours. So, if you could be indulgent aha).
Salut!
I feel like I had such an apathetic attitude towards this book. There are so many symbols and hidden meanings that I overlooked just because I just wanted to get the book over with, which is sad because I know I should have paid more attention to the message of the book.
I agree that Esperanza is longing to escape her reality and even though her experience living on Mango Street seems to be a point in her life that is very developmental but she regards it as only being “yeah I lived there but I don’t belong there.”
This is almost just an aside, but I am struck by the fact that the people who seem most to like this book are you, Craig, and Curtis: the boys. (And I’d add myself to that list, I think.) And those who don’t (or didn’t) like it (Maria, Rachel) are girls. This seems counterintuitive to me. But then perhaps we live in “separate worlds” (8).
It is true that throughout the book we witness the story of Esperanza, a young girl who has the need to escape the place she calls home. She has the need to escape the kind of recurring role and lifestyle that is place upon the women on Mango Street. I liked how you also touched on the image of the window. The window represents that barrier the women have from their own world found in their house and the world outside. They are trapped and are unable to escape. Esperanza wants to escape this sad but repeated destiny in her community.