The House On Mango Street Freedom Essay

In the novel, The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros uses Sally and Mamacita to show that when women get married, most of the time they allow men to control their lives and take away most of their freedoms and rights. Cisneros uses Sally to reveal that becoming married takes away much of a woman’s freedom. For instance, Sally decides to get married because she feels she will get more freedom than when she wasn’t married. She believes her husband will grant her freedom and let her choose what she wants to do with her life. Her assumption was not correct, as her husband only let her do the things she wanted with his permission after she got married. This is explained when Esperanza explains Sally’s position by claiming: “Sally says she likes being married because now she gets to buy her own things when her husband gives her mercy” (Cisneros 101). Sally does not appreciate how her father controls her and doesn’t give her freedom so she decides to get married hoping she will get more freedom than before. Sally now can buy her own things only with the permission from her husband. Accordingly, her husband still controls her but gives her some freedom in the form of letting her choose what she wants to but only when he …show more content…
Throughout the novel, Sandra Cisneros uses Mamacita to show that a language barrier and the conflict of having one’s husband controlling their life can limit the amount of choices one gets to make on their own. “Home. Home. Home is a photograph, a pink house, pink as hollyhocks with lots of startled light. The man paints the wall of the apartment pink, but it’s not the same, you know. She still sighs for her pink house, and then I think she cries, I would” (77). “No Speak English, she says to the child who is singing in the language that sounds like tin. No speak English, no speak English, and bubbles into tears. No, no, no, as if she can’t believe her ears”