"She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window." (Cisneros 11)
The primary theme of this novel is escape, with Mango Street serving as a sort of prison. Esperanza makes multiple references to women sitting by their windows throughout the novel, and she speaks in a way that brings the image of a jail cell to mind. These women are trapped here on Mango Street, with a wishful desire to leave but unable to do so for some reason or another. When Esperanza thinks back to her grandmother and her time spent waiting at the window, Esperanza thinks to herself that she does not want to be held captive by Mango Street like she and so many other women were.
She does maintain the thought, for a moment at least, that her grandmother tried her hardest to escape and do the things that she wanted to do, free of persecution of all sorts. Though she thinks about it briefly, this is the thought that she identifies with the most throughout the novel. She does want to escape, and she wants to make sure that she does the best with her situation, so that she can always claim to have attempted to escape and not to sit back complacently while she stared out the window thinking about what may or may not be.
You see a similar train of thought reflected in the argument with Sally, though not necessarily at first glance. She berates Sally for leaving with an older man at the carnival, leaving Esperanza alone with some boys who sexually assault her. Esperanza is upset with her friend for abandoning her and leaving her open to being attacked by these boys, and yet there is something else at play here. This whole incident reinforces Esperanza's need to escape Mango Street, yet it also sets the precedent for an inevitable return. Esperanza does not want to treat her friends and family of Mango Street the way Sally treated her, going off on her own grand adventure once she escapes Mango Street only to leave them all to fend for themselves. Esperanza resolves herself to escaping Mango Street, but also promises to return after she has escaped so that she may help those who wish to leave escape with her.
This passage reflects Esperanza's want to avoid becoming like the women of Mango Street's past, it reflects her desire for an absolute escape from this place the confines her. Yet she promises to return and help those who cannot help themselves escape with her, after she has established a foothold in the outside world.
Hi Nick,
ReplyDeleteYes, I think this passage really sets the scene for the main theme of the novel--of escape and return. And you are right that windows become a regular motif throughout the vignettes, and while they do at times work as prisons they can also be avenues for escape, for dreaming, and for letting the sky in. You draw an important distinction between Sally--who endangers her friend in her own attempt at escape--and Esperanza. We also see in Sally how the heteronormative marriage plot cannot bring anyone else along since the girls who marry end up isolated from their girlfriends and controlled by their husband. Thus, if Esperanza wants to use her platform to raise up the other girls, she has to do so autonomously.