A House On Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros' A House on Mango Street is about a young lady who is being affected by the women that are in her life. In an article on The House on Mango street Dian Klein says, "In The House on Mango Street is an ironic twist to the guidance of mentors, for often Esperanza is guided by examples of women she does not want to emulate, such as Sally and Rafaela" (Klein, 24). In the three vignettes that Cisneros uses are "Louie, His Cousin & His Other Cousin", "Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays", and "My Name". The women in these vignettes are marginalized by gender, appearance, and family issues. In The House on Mango Street's vignette "My Name", it is about how her grandmother was marginalized and how Esperanza does not …show more content…
In the vignette "Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays", Rafaela has a husband but is still pretty young. Her husband locks her up when he leaves the house because he fears of losing her because she is too beautiful to leave free. So when he is out and about doing whatever he wants because Rafaela would never know, she is stuck inside all day looking out the window at the children playing. She sometimes calls out to the kids and asks to get her a drink with the dollar she has and so they do. It is a sad life being stuck inside all day just looking out but she can not do anything about it because her husband forbids her from leaving and she can't take on her husband. In the vignette, Esperanza tells the readers, "And the Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at" (Cisneros, 79). This vignette tells that Rafaela was kept at home everyday because of her looks. Since she was so beautiful she was not allowed to show herself to the rest of the world besides her husband. Because of her looks she is stuck with a man who fears losing his beautiful wife and is forced to lock her up like a domesticated animal. If she were ugly he probably would not have cared because she is too ugly to be stolen by any man since nobody would want her. …show more content…
When she is not in a place where every woman she knows is marginalized and isn't doing anything about it, she will end up doing what they did and end up marginalized as well. But, if she interacts with women who she wants to be like and women who have been through she has been but have managed to escape then that is how she may be able to escape the calling of Mango