Post #5 Alex

I can see a clear theme in the novel that has to do with gender roles.  There seems to be in every vignette some sort of voice from a woman or girl who is abused, neglected or ignored.  I find it interesting how Esperenza’s voice is the one that is telling these stories, but she doesn’t acknowledge how they associate with her.  I found many lines in this section that stood out to me. 

“Her father says to be this beautiful is trouble.”

“I am an ugly daughter.  I am the one nobody comes for.”

“And then Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at.”

These lines all trouble me because there is a message that to be beautiful is trouble and that the only thing women are good for is beauty.  If Esperenza thinks she is ugly, then how does this affect her vision of her future?  In contrast it seems that beauty is bringing trouble to women as well.  They are locked up and imprisoned for being beautiful.  What kind of message is this saying about women and their place in society?  Esperenza is talking about Sally, a girl whose parents don’t let her leave the house with the exception of school when she says “You look at your feet and walk fast to the house you can’t come out from…Do you wish your feet would one day keep walking and take you far away from Mango Street, far away and maybe your feet would stop in front of a house, a nice one with flowers and big windows and steps for you to climb up two by two upstairs to where a room is waiting for you.”  There is this image of girls/women being locked away and only dreaming of a better life far away. 

I also found these lines troubling: “I could have been somebody you know?” and “There’s nothing I can do”.  There is this feeling that since they are women they are helpless and powerless to obtain a better future for themselves.  There is a wish or desire for them to have made something of their lives, but they accept the fact that they didn’t.  Esperenza’s mother says that she was smart in school but dropped out because she didn’t have the right clothing.  She was embarrassed then, but has some sense of regret.  There is also a feeling that she is helpless to change her fortune.  This is a concept that I have great difficulty accepting. 

Using these lines, and some others, I put together this poem and recorded it. 

Mangos are Helpless

 “I could have been somebody you know?”

She is always sad like a house on fire

Always something wrong

Her father says to be this beautiful is trouble

She gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid

she will run away since she is too beautiful to look at

“There is nothing I can do

I could have been somebody you know?”

Shame is a bad thing you know.

It keeps you down.

The stories the boys tell in the coatroom, they’re not true

I don’t tell them I am ashamed

all of us staring out the window like the hungry

She has many troubles, but the big one is her husband who left and keeps leaving

She looks at her feet and walks fast to the house she can’t come out from

“I am an ugly daughter

The one that nobody comes for

I could have been somebody you know?

There is nothing I can do.”