Esperanza

In The House on Mango Street there seems to be a recurring theme of windows. At first glance, it doesn’t seem like much. Until you realize that the windows in this book seem to represent being trapped (especially by loved ones), something to gaze out of as you think about your woes. This metaphor for being trapped, and the accompanying sadness first shows up in “My Name”.
“She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow” (p. 10) Shortly before this is mentioned, Esperanza talks about how this woman had been kidnapped and forced into marriage, and that from the day she was taken, she sat in the window of her home and dreamed of being free to do as she likes once more. It amazes me how this woman is trapped by her family’s ideas and expectations of her, so trapped that she literally is a prisoner in her own home for many years.

The metaphor once again shows up, this time in the vignette “No Speak English”:
“She sits all day by the window and...sings all the homesick songs about her country...” (p. 77) This particular woman, Mamacita, is brought up from her home country by “her man”, and is then confined to their small home with no idea how to speak English, and no idea how to learn. So she is stuck sitting in her window, singing about her real home, and crying over her son, who had begun to talk, not in her native tongue, but in English. She is trapped in her small home, and has no way to escape.

And it shows up once more in the chapter titled “Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut & Papaya Juice on Tuesdays”:
“Rafaela leans out the window and leans on her elbow and dreams her hair is like Rapunzel’s.” (p.79) This poor woman, Rafaela, is trapped in her home because of a husband that fears she will run away because of her beauty. So to combat her overwhelming loneliness and sadness, she asks local children to buy her Coconut or Papaya Juice, to remind her of the days when she could be herself, and help her relive them. It is her small rebellion, asking these children to buy her these drinks. Her one, temporary escape from her prison.

These women, every single one of them, are trapped in a world that seems to want to keep them miserable and unhappy, and none of them, it would seem, can escape.