Gender Role In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street

Gender role plays an important role in shaping the way we see and think about others within the community. The role of women in a men dominated society is one of the most important theme in Sandra Cisneros’s novel The House on Mango Street. The main character Esperenza, along with other women struggles to trench the stereotypes that have been made for women by the men in the community. The novel focuses on the effects of society’s expectation and rules of patriarchal culture towards women. Esperenza, being the main character gets surrounded by the women who faces major challenges in their everyday life. They want to get treated equally as men in the society where they are looked down upon as nothing but a housewife. Esperenza’s disappointment …show more content…
Men are portrayed as a strong figure and has everything easy in the novel. But Esperenza is different. She does not see a future where she is dependent on anyone. She has endless dreams of her own. Her dreams of “having a house of her own” starts at a very young age. As she moves into the new neighborhood in the Mango Street, she gets disappointed because it is not the house her parents talked about and also not the real one’s she has seen on TV. But Esperenza, whose name itself means “hope” meets Lucy and Rachel, whose life stories give her “hope” since they too come from the same background. However, Lucky and Rachel dream about a man who would come to their life and make it better but Esperenza on the other hand believes that she does not need anyone to be dependent on. Out of the ordinary, she also meets Sally, who teaches her to be independent and self-sufficient woman. As she meets all the new people in the neighborhood, she watches life’s most euphoric and harsh realities regarding gender …show more content…
From not being treated as equally as men to facing a sexual harassment. Ezperenza meets Sally and finds out that she uses men to get away from her relationship with her abusive father. Since women are looked down upon and since they are not given any priority in the novel, they go through sexual harassment. Esperenza and her friends gets harassed by Mr. Benny at the carnival. Not only that, a guy at Esperenza’s work kissed her at the first day of her new job because it was his “birthday”. Esperenza says “I thought I would because he was so old and just as I was about to put my lips on his cheek, he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn 't let go” (55). Even though he was old and seemed like a good guy, he had bad intention towards her. Sexual assault is shown through the main character Esperenza and her friends throughout the