Since many of the women on Mango Street are viewed as weak and helpless, Esperanza feels motivated to not follow in their footsteps and to obtain success on her own. Mexican culture is a patriarchal society, so they “don't like their women strong” (Cisneros 10). On Mango street, some women marry so that they are able to live with enough money, but are not treated with the respect that they should get.“ The future for women in the barrio is a bleak one, where they cannot roam around; their place is in confinement at home” (Veras 241) In some of these relationships, they are abused and isolated from their friends and families. Sally, Esperanza’s friend, marries at a very young age to escape her abusive father and to live in a nice home. She
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She sometimes feel discouraged by her appearance, such as her “lazy hair” that “never obeys barrettes or bands” and would know that she was “an ugly daughter”(Cisneros 6, 88). Despite the insecurities she possesses about her appearance, women are taught from a young age, that it is dangerous for them to look beautiful. While Esperanza and her friends were playing dress up, parading down the streets in high heels, a man started scolding them for wearing the heels saying,”Your mother know you got shoes like that?... Them are dangerous” (Cisneros 41). This was not the only time they were stopped during their play time, a man on the streets offered one of the girls a dollar in exchange for a kiss. Beauty is sometimes taken in as an invite, even if it is just little girls playing around. Rafaela cannot leave the house “because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at” (Cisneros 79). Esperanza sees these situations always ending negatively and realizes that she may not be the pretty child and that she should not care. She decides “ to not grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain,” and says that she has already begun her “own quiet war,” where she will leave “the table like a man”(Cisneros
She sometimes feel discouraged by her appearance, such as her “lazy hair” that “never obeys barrettes or bands” and would know that she was “an ugly daughter”(Cisneros 6, 88). Despite the insecurities she possesses about her appearance, women are taught from a young age, that it is dangerous for them to look beautiful. While Esperanza and her friends were playing dress up, parading down the streets in high heels, a man started scolding them for wearing the heels saying,”Your mother know you got shoes like that?... Them are dangerous” (Cisneros 41). This was not the only time they were stopped during their play time, a man on the streets offered one of the girls a dollar in exchange for a kiss. Beauty is sometimes taken in as an invite, even if it is just little girls playing around. Rafaela cannot leave the house “because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at” (Cisneros 79). Esperanza sees these situations always ending negatively and realizes that she may not be the pretty child and that she should not care. She decides “ to not grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain,” and says that she has already begun her “own quiet war,” where she will leave “the table like a man”(Cisneros