Esperanza is a young woman who passed through a lot in her life, just like any other female character in the novel The House on Mango Street. However, Sandra Cisneros does not just tells us about the life of a child who grows up in a world where she is not understood and wants to put her down. Cisneros gives Esperanza a whole different role, this young woman is the personification of the desperate hope of Mexican women who desire to change their lives but cannot. On the other hand, French women do not only rely on hope, they fight for what it right for them since birth. That is the reason why I am going to analyze how the text could be read and interpreted differently by Mexican women and French women, as if it had been read back in the 80s.
From Sandra Cisneros's novel we can learn alot about the kind of life that Mexican women led back in the eighties,especially when the writer confessed that she got inspired by the stories ofthe females that surrounded her life, and that Esperanza was a combination of allof them. She also said that a lot of the vignettes were based on her neighbors and people she grew upwith: "Most of Cisneros' classmates at Iowawere people from more materially privileged backgrounds than Cisneros',descendents of European immigrants to the U.S. Initially, Cisneros attemptedto use their kinds of subjects, characters, and settings in her own writing.Unhappy with the results, she then made an important decision: she decided to"rebel" by writing about the neighborhoods in which she had grown up,the people who were her relatives, and friends and neighbors. The House on Mango Street was begun*". Women are repressed through the whole novel, they are mistreated and considered in a lower position than men only because of their gender. They are taught that the only reason they were created was for getting married, and the natural way of how, not only women but society accept this kind of life is only a proof of it.
The novel has a lot of examples: Marin, whose only dream is to get married and be a housewife; Sally, who accepts and submits to men's higher position in society so she could free herself from her repressing father and all the women who stay by the window wishing for someone to rescue them. But the best example that expresses the behavior of Mexican men is the next: "... I ran up three flights of stairs to where Tito lived. His mother was ironing shirts. She was sprinkling water on them from an empty pop bottle and smoking a cigarette.
Your son and his friends stole Sally's keys and now they won't give them back unless she kisses them and right now they're making her kiss them. I said all out of breath from the three flights of stairs.
Those kids, she said, not looking up from her ironing.
That's all?" (97).
Here we can see that not only Sally plays along the boys' game, whose rules only males could make. Tito's mother does not move to help Esperanza's friend, she just keeps on ironing as if it was something that happened all the time... something common. That's why if women, back in the 80s, read The House on Mango Street they would not react pejoratively because the events of the book happened to them daily.
On the other hand, if French women, back in the 80s, had read the life story of Esperanza they would have reacted in defense of what she represented (the hope of the repressed women in Mexico). Because they were accustomed to an environment that let them be able to express who they were freely with no one thinking of it as wrong. It is known that in France women were not allowed to vote until 1949, long after Britain, Germany, the United States and Spain. But women never lost hope or stopped trying to gain their rights justly. It goes without saying that marriage did not stop French women from getting paid jobs: half of the wives population of France were working and getting paid. During the interwar period France had 35% of their women working while England, a country that let their females vote since 1918, only had 28% of them. This fact concerning women's politics and economics rights is quite striking.
Here we can see thefight of French females to be treatedlike equals, not to be repressed. They finally broke from society's idea ofwhat a woman should be and should act like. Simone de Beauvoir, a great Frenchfeminist, illustrated this idea with her beautiful words: "On the day when it will be possible forwoman to love not in her weakness but in strength, not to escape herself but tofind herself, not to abase herself but to assert herself – on that day love will become for her, as for man, a source of life and not of mortal danger. Inthe meantime, love represents in its most touching form the curse that liesheavily upon woman confined in the feminine universe, woman mutilated,insufficient unto herself**". Soreading about female companions being put down by men back in the 80s when theywere still fighting very hard for their recognition, would have made them very angry and frustrated.
Wanting to be herself and accepted as such is what Esperanza wants in life. She believes that it does not matter from where you are or what gender you are, everyone should be accepted. The only difference is that her society teaches their people to see this liberal ideas as right or wrong. It molds them to be what others want them to be, it weakens the characters' ability either to escape or to accept their fate. However, Esperanza has the strength to break from the judgmental eyes of the others and be free: that's why she causes such a big impact on the reader. Mexican women see her as a role model while French women feel related to what this young woman has gone through.
Just like Esperanza, we did not have an easy path to go through, but throughout the novel we were able to see the growth of this character and how she found herself, even if she did not know what she truly was looking for. The best phrase in the book that expresses the true emotions of the writer and the right essence of the complex character that Esperanza is, is the following: "They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out". Because it expresses the long way that Esperanza has gone through, and it shows how this young girl is the personification of the dreams and hopes of Mexican women back in the eighties.
In conclusion, we cansee what Esperanza truly is: she is hope, but it is interpreted differentlyfrom each point of view. Mexican females look at this young woman as a sweet dream, a small hope of someone that might come to save them. On the other hand, French women see it as a proof that they need to keep on fighting so that freedom could truly happen.
1224 WORDS.
*http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/h/the-house-on-mango-street-woman-hollering-creek-other-stories/sandra-cisneros-biography
**http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/09/simone-de-beauvoir-google-doodle-quotes
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How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?
Não FicçãoThesis statement of the essay: We can all read The House on Mango Street and know that it is tackles the topic of women's rights, who are repressed by the male figure in their lives. But this text would be interpreted differently if read by a female...
