House On Mango Street Themes

In The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros, there are many themes. Some of these themes are universal as well as specific to the era/setting of the book, the 1990s in a Mexican American low income neighborhood.
One of the major themes would be words have power. The protagonist, Esperanza, learns the power of controlling languages starting by names. On page 11 it states, “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.” She hates her name, many make fun of it and she wants to change it. She doesn’t want a name to define her, that’s why she wants to change it to something that shows the real her. From then she goes into language, realized that she can change horrible experiences to beautiful languages. Beautiful languages meaning poetry and thanks to her aunt who told her on page 75,”You must keep writing. It will keep you free…”Language helped her go through her problems being Mexican American; being bullied, feeling isolated, etc. Esperanza finds hope in writing, feeling that the power of words will somehow free her. …show more content…
Esperanza realizes that the women are powerless, being controlled by their husbands. For example on page 99 ,” And then 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.” That shows women were being trapped from their freedom, powerless from a man. The men were dangerous, on page 123 it states, “Why didn’t you tell them to leave me alone? The one who grabbed me by the arm, he wouldn’t let me go. He said I love you, Spanish girl, I love you, and pressed his sour mouth to mine.” Esperanza was being raped and there was her friend Sally standing there powerless watching. Till this day some women are powerless while the men have the