Professor DeVries,
Thank you for a great learning experience. I have become very interested in the different literary theories there are in Literature. I may even take some classes so I could learn more about them. I came home and read my Revision essay, I fixed some little errors I saw. Not much edititn, just “dotted some i’s, and crossed some t’s” sort of speak. Have a great Winter Break. I hope I get the opportunity to take a class with you again.
Thank you,
Cynthia Bautista
Cynthia Bautista
Professor DeVries
English 3150
9 December 2009
Media Essay Revised
Latina o` Chicano
For my Revision Essay, I chose to revise my Media Essay. I chose this piece because I feel that I did not execute my thesis properly. I agree with Professor DeVries when she commented that the points get lost in the plot summary. I believe that this was in part because this novel swept me away because of the familiarity of the theme. In revising my essay on how the book, The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, is a form of media that reflects on the Latino culture in literature
The House on Mango Street is a linked compilation of forty-four short tales that conjures the circumstances and conditions inside of a Chicago Hispanic American ghetto, otherwise known as the “barrio.” The narrative is seen through the eyes of an adolescent girl coming of age, Esperanza Cordero. These short-tales are snapshots of the imagery of the roles of women in this society. These tales also uncover that dual force that for Esperanza, like other women in the Latino culture, also known as “Latinas”, pulls between the felling of staying grounded to cultural traditions and the needing to pursue a better way of life, and to get out of the barrio. Throughout the book, Cisneros also explores other themes such as, cultural traditions, gender roles, and the coming of age inside a binary society that struggles to stay true to its background and at the same time integrating into the American culture. For the purpose of this paper I will incorporate the following topics: the problems that Latino women endure in this culture, the archetypes of Latino women, and the shame that comes with their own identity as women of this culture.
Treatment of Latino women. In this novel, the women are viewed as objects by men such as, boyfriends, fathers, and husbands. As girls they are raised to believe that appearances are very important in a woman’s life. Without a man in their lives, they would be considered worthless. Since the beginning, it is instilled in a Latino woman’s mentality that they are supposed to be controlled by a man. As little girls, the way they dress, act, talk, think, and the way they wear their hair is controlled by their father. As women, you are supposed to get married and then the control passes on to the husband, in the same manner. Cisneros’s through her writing also shows how Latino women need to be loyal to husband and the mentality that the husbands control the relationship. Esperanza is different than the Latino women in the barrio, even though, she is born inside this culture; she refuses to live like them. She knows that someday she will be “free” from these culture ties, because she is the mental courage, and the ability to tell stories. Through her stories, she shows these women that they too can be independent in their own lives.
The Latino girls and women are extremely concerned with appearances; they feel if they are not attractive, men will not notice them. If men do not notice them, how are they going to be able to find a husband? They are raised to believe that they need a man to fulfill their lives, and that they need a husband to support them. For example, in the story “Marin”, when Marin is talking to the girls about “getting a real job downtown, because that is where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.” (Cisneros 26) Marin is not allowed outside of the house until her aunt comes home, and even then she is only allowed to stay in front of the house. But as soon as the light in her aunt’s room goes out, Marin and she goes outside and stands under the streetlight with a lit cigarette and a radio, no matter how cold or if the radio does not work. “What matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them. And since Marin’s skirts are shorter and since her eyes are pretty, and since Marin is already older…the boys who do pass by say stupid things like I am in love with those green apples you call eyes…” (Cisneros 27) In this way, Cisneros is showing how the values that these women have are how a man values them, and that little girls believe that this is the right way of life. The idea of independence, for women, is not something that is considered, until, girls like Esperanza have hopes of leaving the male-governing society, in hopes that one day if there is a need to come back, they will no longer depend on men to do it.
There is a symbolic meaning of appearance, concerning how Latino women are supposed to dress. When the girls are given a bag of clothes and high-heeled shoes that Esperanza calls “magic high-heels shoes”, in the story, “The Family of Little Feet”, when the girls put on the they feel like Cinderella, they learn how to cross and uncross their legs, and how to walk down to the corner, Esperanza notices that the men cannot take their eyes off these girls, and they do not seem to mind. After all, what adolescent girl does not like to be noticed? Esperanza and Rachel are too young, and do not realize that they are being treated as objects by these men that are noticing them.
Cisneros also shows many examples of women getting married and end up being owned by their husbands. She describes women who are prisoners in their own homes, who look out the window their whole lives. In the story, “Sally,” Sally, who has been kept inside her whole life, gets married before eighth grade. She gets married to get away from all the troubles she has with her father. “She says, she’s in love but I think she did it to escape,” says Esperanza. (Cisneros 82) Sally also has a home and things of her own now. Her husband, however, does not let her talk on the phone, visit with friends or look out the window. Her days are spent alone looking at all the things that they own. “The Towels and toaster, and alarm clock and drapes.” Esperanza realizes that although Sally now has all the material things a husband can provide her life is not worth very much, she is trapped in a room with nothing to do, except look at the things that she owns.
In “Minerva Writes Poems,” Cisneros indicates that some of the Hispanic men abuse their wives. Minerva is a woman that is being abused. “Minerva cries “because her luck is unlucky.” Every night and every day. And prays…She has many troubles, but the big one is her husband who left and keeps leaving.” (84) Even though she throws him out, she takes him back in, and the cycle starts all over again only to end up the same way it started. Next week she comes over black and blue and asks what can she do? Minerva I don’t know which way she’ll go. There is nothing I can I do.” (85)
Archetypes and Myths in Latino Women. In the story, “And Some More”, Esperanza and the girls are discussing the nature of snow. When Esperanza tells the girls that she read in a book that Eskimos have thirty different names for snow, “There ain’t thirty different kinds of snow, Lucy says. There are two kinds. The clean kind and the dirty kind clean and dirty. Only two.” (Cisneros 35) “There are a million zillion kinds, says Nenny. No two exactly alike. Only how do you remember which one is which? (35) On the surface level, the girl’s conversation is childish, senseless.
In a broader text, Nenny and Lucy are really discussing the highlights of conflicting theory which is at the center of Cisneros’s work: culturally defining the world by a stringent black/white, good/ bad, clean/dirty, versus the individuality. Cisneros relates this binary specifically to the Mexican culture in her life and writing. “Certainly that black-white, good-bad issue is prevalent in my work and in other Latinas. We are raised with a Mexican culture that has two role models: La Malinche and La Virgen the Guadalupe. And you know that’s a hard route to go, one or the other, there’s no in-betweens.” (Petty) According to Cisneros, then females, like snow, are not seen in Latino culture as unique individuals but are labeled as either “good” women or “bad” women, as “clean” or “dirty”, as “virgins” or “malinches.”
The House on Mango Street is just such an adaptation. Cisneros revisits this significance of the Chicana archetypes of la Malinche and la Virgen de Guadalupe through her characterization of females in the book. “By recasting these mythical stories from the female perspective, Cisneros shows artificial and confining these cultural stereotypes are, and through her creation of Esperanza, imagines a protagonist who can embody both the violation associated with la Malinche and the nurturing associated with la Virgen de Guadalupe, all while rejecting the feminine passivity that is promoted by both role models.” (Petty) Therefore, Esperanza transcends the good/bad dichotomy associated with these archetypes and becomes a new model for the Chicano women.
Identity. Besides dealing with the pressures of being female and a child, Esperanza must also address the obstacles of being Chicano, and is therefore caught between “los intersticios,” the spaces between different two worlds she inhabits. Mexican versus American Culture. Cisneros’ use of vignettes, rather than a linear narrative, highlights the idea of living in borderlands, she, being Esperanza, has been placed in an in-between space of uneven form. Her bilingualism, allows her to show flexibility of her subjectivity which allows her to reshape her world view.
Even though Cisneros portrays most of the Latino women in male dominated ways, she wants her readers to know that Esperanza is different. In the story “My Name,” she tells us that her grandmother had the same name, and that she admires her grandmother because she was “a wild horse of a woman,” like her Grandmother Esperanza was born in the year of the horse, and that signifies strength. (11) Esperanza feels that she will grow up to be a strong woman, and she is determined to leave Mango Street and lead her own life. Cisneros lets us know that as much as Esperanza admires her grandmother she is determined not to “inherit her place by the window.” In the story “Beautiful & Cruel,” Esperanza makes this clear by saying “but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the thresh-hold waiting for the ball and chain.” She has started her own was. She says “I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate the.”(88) In the last story, Mango Says Good bye sometimes,” Esperanza, lets us know how she plans to become her own woman, because she has the ability to tell stories. She is different and can part with life on Mango Street. She is strong enough to go away, but she knows she will return through her writing to help weaker woman who “cannot get out.” (109)
Cisneros uses the book The House on Mango Street to show that you acquire the beliefs of others around you , and when you never have a chance to get to know all the aspects of life you can’t imagine a better life for yourself, when you don’t know what to imagine. She creates the character Esperanza to show us that that every once in a while one person can be different, and try to make their life better and the lives of others better.
Although Esperanza is constantly reaffirming and swears that she wants to move away from Mango Street, we know by the end novel that she will one day return to help those who will not be as lucky as she. Indeed, in the closing pages it is clear to Esperanza that she cannot escape Mango Street; that what friends were telling her was true: Esperanza cannot cut ties with Mango Street. It has influenced her dreams and personality and she has learned valuable life lessons from its inhabitants. That is why Esperanza tells stories about the house on Mango Street, finding the beauty amidst dirty streets is finding her true self. It is her story, her coming of age and out of the filth involves oppressions, delusions, and being ashamed of our own selfhood. Through these stories she informs us, her readers that in the Latino culture there are ties that seem unbreakable, but, that could be mended. No matter, how far you go from home, home is always near. It is like the old Spanish saying, “Puedes sacar a la nena del barrio, pero, el barrio siempre se queda con ella.” You can take the barrio out of the girl, but the barrio will always stay inside the girl. No matter how bad.
Works Cited
Petty, Leslie “The Dual-ing of la Malinche and la Virgen de Guadalupe in Cisneros’ “The House
On Mango Street.” MELLUS 25.2 (2000):119. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO.web
7 Dec 2009
Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books: A Division of
Random House, 1984. Print.
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