Symbolism In The House On Mango Street

The House on Mango Street is a series of vignettes by Sandra Cisneros that records stories of Esperanza’s life on Mango Street in a chronological order. As she experiences things on Mango Street and matures emotionally and sexually, the vignettes transitioned from innocent childlike observations of the world to sharper reasoning of the cultural and social changes that’s happening in the Mango Street community. Sexuality and freedom are prominent themes throughout the novel. Withe use of symbols such as flying, shoes, and femme fatales, Esperanza’s struggle between her budding sexuality and her desire for freedom is revealed. On the first few chapters, it is clear that Esperanza’s goal is to escape Mango Street and live in a house of her own after seeing the trapped women around the neighborhood. Not only that, in “Boys & Girls” Esperanza already understands the inequality between the boys and girls in her society when she mentioned that her brothers don’t speak to her outside the house because she’s a girl. For now her observation is still innocent and childlike and limited to her siblings. She mentions also her desire for a best friend “of her own”. Without a friend, she’s “a …show more content…
This is shown through “The Family of Little Feet”, where Esperanza, Rachel, Lucy, and Nenny are given high heel shoes and strut about the neighborhood only to get catcalls by boys and men. A bum also flirts with Rachel asking her to kiss him in exchange for a dollar. Lucy who is frightened makes the girls leave and they all run home to discard their shoes. In a way, by discarding the shoes easily, they’re discarding their sexuality. Little did she know, Esperanza would struggle dealing with desire of being independent and free and the desire for men and the pleasure she gets from being desired when she hits