“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will”-Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre. In The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros, women are portrayed in instances where they gave up on their potential, married instead, and became caged and unhappy. “Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays” shows a woman whose husband won't let her leave the house because she is too beautiful. “Minerva Writes Poems” is about a very young woman who writes poems and is trapped in an abusive marriage with 2 kids. Esperanza swears to not be like these women and to keep her power in “Beautiful & Cruel.” These situations in Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street exemplifies the fact that women are often times
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Esperanza realizes this after seeing it so often in her neighborhood. “...But I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain”(88). Esperanza refuses to allow her freedom to be stripped of her so easily and she will not allow herself to bend to the norm of marrying young. When she mentions “ball and chain” she means marriage, which shows how she knows that it can be confining like a prison if it happens at the wrong time with the wrong person. However, Minerva, who is only a few years older than Esperanza, chose marriage and children and ends up unhappy because of it, “She as many troubles but the big one is her husband who left and keeps …show more content…
Minerva does this at a young age when she has potential for so much more. “But when the kids are asleep after she’s fed them their pancake dinner, she writes poems on little pieces of paper that she folds over and over and holds in her hands for a long time, little pieces of paper that smell like a dime”(84). Instead of pursuing any kind of writing career or schooling, she settled down and had a family. When Cisneros writes how the poems “smell like a dime” she is hinting to how successful Minerva could be with her poems. Instead she has to turn her attention elsewhere to raising and taking care of her children all while dealing with an abusive husband. Rafaela also is trapped in a toxic marriage and wasting her potential. “...Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much...”(79). Rafaela is young and the world should be her oyster, but instead she isn’t even allowed to leave her home. As the world goes by, all she can do is watch out the window and slowly waste away. Rafaela could do anything, be anyone but she pushes it all aside in the hopes of stability and marriage. Minerva and Rafaela are only a couple of the women who shows Esperanza the loss of potential that can come of a bad marriage and so she claims that she will become beautiful and cruel. “In the movies there is always one with
Esperanza realizes this after seeing it so often in her neighborhood. “...But I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain”(88). Esperanza refuses to allow her freedom to be stripped of her so easily and she will not allow herself to bend to the norm of marrying young. When she mentions “ball and chain” she means marriage, which shows how she knows that it can be confining like a prison if it happens at the wrong time with the wrong person. However, Minerva, who is only a few years older than Esperanza, chose marriage and children and ends up unhappy because of it, “She as many troubles but the big one is her husband who left and keeps …show more content…
Minerva does this at a young age when she has potential for so much more. “But when the kids are asleep after she’s fed them their pancake dinner, she writes poems on little pieces of paper that she folds over and over and holds in her hands for a long time, little pieces of paper that smell like a dime”(84). Instead of pursuing any kind of writing career or schooling, she settled down and had a family. When Cisneros writes how the poems “smell like a dime” she is hinting to how successful Minerva could be with her poems. Instead she has to turn her attention elsewhere to raising and taking care of her children all while dealing with an abusive husband. Rafaela also is trapped in a toxic marriage and wasting her potential. “...Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much...”(79). Rafaela is young and the world should be her oyster, but instead she isn’t even allowed to leave her home. As the world goes by, all she can do is watch out the window and slowly waste away. Rafaela could do anything, be anyone but she pushes it all aside in the hopes of stability and marriage. Minerva and Rafaela are only a couple of the women who shows Esperanza the loss of potential that can come of a bad marriage and so she claims that she will become beautiful and cruel. “In the movies there is always one with