The Sexist Prejudices Affecting Women in the House on Mango Street

The Sexist Prejudices Affecting Wo custody in The House on mango Street In my essay I am going to write ab prohibited the Mexi dirty dog gender based prejudices and stereotypes which affect the women of Esperanzas approach in Sandra Cisneross novel The House on Mango Street. I would cargon to point out the lives of the main women characters and their dealing with the prejudices in insouciant occasions.Futhermore, I motive to talk or so Esperanza and her attitude towards the surrounding office and also mention the historical topground of the business. From my point of view, the fact that the women add up along from the Mexican biotic community has essenti altogethery influenced their lives. It has rattling predetermined them in a way that the women argon not able to set free for the reliever of their lives. During the novel the find outer gets to know whatsoever of the Mexican prejudices in proportion to women which all the female characters hand over to face.The sex ist prejudice is clear from having read few lines of the novel where Esperanza, the narrator, explains the meaning of her name with the companionship to the Chinese signs of the zodiac, I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, dont like their women strong (Cisneros 10). This tells the referee ace important fact. The Mexicans be branded towards their women and wives and they tries to take over the womens lives. It is actually difficult for the women coming from the Mexican community to live their avow smell themselves and to be independent of their affectionate background.This observation is confirmed by Elizabeth Coonrod Martinez in her work on the relationships of women with men in the novels based on this phenomenon, women characters do not initiate razets in their own lives instead they endure poverty and racism from the society at large and oppression under the men in their lives. They do not get to choose their spouses, and when they do p ick a boyfriend, and get pregnant, they are considered evil misss. They do not have choice-before or after man and wife (131). The author of the book gives a notion what the status of women in the Mexican community in the novel is.They are supposed to stay at home, preferably, behind a rolling pin (Cisneros 31). Moreover, many of the women are locked at home or cannot leave the house without their spouses permission. This fact is obvious at many times in the novel. At first, when Esperanza talks about her great-grandmother, she describes her as a woman that had spent all her life on her elbows by the window. At this point, where Esperanza describes her great-grand mother, she also says n archaeozoicthing about herself, I dont want to inherit her place by the window (Cisneros 11).Later, this fact is emphasized by the written report of the woman called Rafaela, whose fulfilment of the life is to sit by the window. As the narrator reports, Rafaela, who is still young provided get ting old from canted out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela bequeath run away since she is too beautiful to look at (Cisneros 79). The women are regarded as the property of their husbands or their fathers, never independent. In my oppinion, the situation is even made worse by the fact that the protagonists are living in the join States.The women maybe would have accepted this role if they had lived in Mexico, where they would not see any difference in other womens lives. That is unrealistic for them now, to fit in the community rules that are expected to be obeyed. Instead, some women pretend to be a post of the traditional society on the one hand, scarcely on the other, they are more American than Mexican. This is the object lesson of Sally, a young Mexican girl from the community of Chicanos, with a set father and brought up in a very strict, religious and tradionally Mexican family. Sally who must obey her father and accept his way of life and who wants to be an American.For a clearer explanation, her behaviour is described as follows, and why do you always have to go straight home after discipline? You become a different Sally. You pull your skirt straight, you rub the downcast paint off your eyelids. You dont laugh, Sally. You look at our feet and liberty chit fast to the house you cant come out from (Cisneros 82). This girl struggles with two different dry lands but unfortunatelly, the vicious one for her wins. She becomes a part of the no-good community of women who are locked at home and their only sales outlet is in their dreams.Sallys fate is deteriorated due to the relationship with her father, who strikes her because she is a girl and her father wants to take over her life, until the way Sally tells it, he unspoiled went crazy, he just forgot he was her father surrounded by the buckle and the belt. Youre not my daughter, youre not my daughter. And then he broke into his hold (Cisneros 93 ). The story about Sally is a typical example of the struggle. At the end, Sally gets married and her life turns out to be the same sad story. The narrator comments on this, Except he husband wont let her talk on the telephone.And he doesnt let her look out the window. And he doesnt like her friends, so nobody gets to visit her unless he is working. She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission (Cisneros 102). Sally, like the rest of the women characters, ends up in this good-hearted of relationship with her husband, even if she had the luck to escape from her fate, because if she had been more determined in her struggle, she would have succeed. The narration about Sally is important in the novel because it shows Esperanzas feelings towards the sexist and racial prejudices she lives in.Esperanza, as the narrator, gives the personal outlook on the women from her surroundings. Esperanza is the exception of all the women characters in the novel. She is a ware(predicate) of the poor situation and even of a poorer shift from it. Esperanza is handicapped by her Hispanic background and the familys modest financial means (Szadziuk 115). She observes the world around her and feels lonely in her feelings, nobody shares her thoughts, her ideas. She feels like the trees down the road and as she admits, four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city (Cisneros 74).Like a assay tree, Esperanza copes with obstacles that would suppress her, and her inner strength pull up stakes help her r for each one towards a better life. This young girl is the only women in the novel who is deep determined to change her life, to set free and to be on her own. She talent seem naive in her way of achieving it, non a flat. Not an appartment in back. Not a mans house. Not a daddys. A house all my own (Cisneros 108). Nevertheless, the escape from it will not be as easy as thought at first. Once is Esperanza told by her frie nd, when you leave you must remember to come back for the others.A circle, understand? You will always be Esperanza. You will always be Mango Street. You cant forget who you are (Cisneros 105). The circle is unappealing and fulfilled. Even if Esperanza escapes, she will not be free of her background. In parity with other women characters in the novel, Esperanza has the musical accompaniment of her family, especially the support of her mother who encourages her and her siblings to be determined and to be strong in gaining their dream. The mothers support is based on her own life and unhappines, shame is a bad thing, you know. It keeps you down.You want to know why I quit school? Because I didnt have nice clothes. No clothes, but I had brains (Cisneros 91). female parent who suffered from distinction is now resolved to protect her children from having a similar experience. Unfortunatelly, Esperanza experiences some oppression anyway and she describes it, Those who do not any bett er come into our neighborhood scared. They think were dangerous. They think we will attack them with smart knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake (Cisneros 28). Little Esperanza learns about a hardship very early in her life.She does not understand it at first but after she fully realizes what means the arrogant voice of nun who asks her where she lives. Esperanza, unaware of anything, points to her house. but later she realizes how important for her is to escape from this societal oppression and racial discrimination and longs for her own house, a house she would not be ashamed of, a house she could point to when someone aks where she lives. Futhermore, the women characters and all Mexican immigrants living in the United States in general suffer from a particular gas typical of the immigrant community.Their poor situation is made worse by it. That is the desirousness. This is very difficult to explain because in this case it has a historical connec tion to 1848 when the former Mexican lands became American property and millions of Mexican citizens suddenly lived on American territory. For an illustration of this event Chicanos and Chicanas have always been in newfound Mexico, Texas, California, Colorado, Illinois and other North American states. The Gonzalezes, the Dominguezes, the Garcias, the Fernandezes have lived in these states ever since they can remember.Their great, great grandmother had a house in San Antonio, or in San Diego, or in Sante Fe, long before 1836 and 1848 when these territories became American. (Poniatowska 39) From the citation of Elena Poniatowska it is obvious that the Mexicans are not initially responsible for the problems of the Mexican community in the United States nowadays. They miss their native country so they try to compensate the sorrow for living more culturally orthodox life abroad. In the novel, the problem of homesickness is portrayed mainly in the story of Mamacita, a mother of one of t he inhabitants of Mango Street.Even if she is not a one of the descendants of the immigrant family but actually a Mexican citizen, Mamacita comes to Mango Street to live with her son, who sees his future in reaching the American dream. As she does not speak English, the difference between the Mexican and the American culture is much more visible. Mamacita represents the old, initial kind of immigrants, who long for going back to their native country whereas her son presents the young, Americanized macrocosm of the Mexican community. Two different worlds which can never be united.The reader learns more about it through the eyes of Esperanza, as she reports, She sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull (Cisneros 77). Mamacita is unwilling to adjust and wants to go back to her native Mexico even if life can be harder and poorer there. Esperanza continues, Ay, she says, she is sa d. Oh he says, Not again. Cuando, cuando, cuando? She asks. Ay, caray We are are home. This is home. Here I am and here I stay. Speak English.Speak English. savior (Cisneros 78). Mamacita and her son are examples of eternal fight for the unity of two different worlds which can never link up the gap between each other. In conlusion, the racial, gender based and social prejudices in the Mexican community in the novel are very essential. In every story the reader may see the stereotypes which affect the protagonists. Each of them deals with it differently but with the same result. They are not able to set themselves free from their social background and their origin pursues them all their life.Nonetheless, some of the women characters chose this way of living from their own choice, voluntarily. Specifically, the words of Elena Poniatowska point this out, To say that Mexico abandoned its people would not be false, because Mexico abandons all poor Mexicans. The poor choose the American dream and the American way of life on the other side of the border, because they dont see a future for themselves in their own country (Poniatowska 41). Whether the immigrants have chosen to live on the margin of society in the conflicting country of own accord or not, their cultural heritage follows them all the time.Works Cited Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. New York Vintage, 1984. Martinez, Elizabeth Coonrod. Crossing Gender Borders knowledgeable Relations and Chicana Artistic Identity. Melus 27. 1 (2002) 131-50. < http//lion. chadwyck. co. uk> Poniatowska, Elena. Mexicanas and Chicanas. Melus 21. 3 (1996) 35-42. Szadziuk, Maria. Culture as diversity Becoming a Woman in Bi-Ethnic Space. Mosaic 32. 3 (1999) 109-30. < http//lion. chadwyck. co. uk>