House on Mango Street: Marin: the Not so Independent, Independent Woman

The House on Mango Street has a theme of sexuality vs. autonomy. Throughout the book, Esperanza dreams of having her own house like the one her parents told her she would eventually get. She eventually realizes that if she wants to get her dream home and get out of the neighborhood, she would have to do it on her own. This leads her to resist men. In addition, there are other parts of the book that imply that her ticket out of her neighborhood is a man. In the chapter, Marin, the theme of sexuality vs. autonomy is on display. The first paragraph says, “Marin’s boyfriend is in Puerto Rico. She shows us his letters and makes us promise not to tell anybody they’re getting married when she goes back to P.R. She says he didn’t get a job yet, but she’s saving the money she gets from selling Avon to take care of her cousins.” Marin having a secret boyfriend that she plans to marry when she goes home shows that she is focused on boys and love. Conversely, she has a job and he doesn’t. That shows that she is quite independent and is a hard worker. The next paragraph displays the theme of autonomy vs. sexuality even more. It says, “Marin says that if she stays here next year, she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone on the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.” In the first paragraph, we established that Marin is quite independent. In this paragraph, she talks about getting a job which confirms that independence, but then she talks about wanting the job because she would get to look beautiful and wear nice clothes. The term "look beautiful" implies that she does not think she looks beautiful now and devalues the autonomy she already has. In the end, she outright states that she wants to attract a man to rescue her. The idea that she can be as independent as she is and still desire to be rescued by a man shows that she attributes autonomy to dependence on someone in a better situation than hers. She even encourages Esperanza to sit on the porch just to attract attention later in the chapter. Her solution for leaving the neighborhood is the opposite of Esperanza's desire to do it on her own. It is disappointing because a young woman who can care for her cousins and has a job in a foreign country has more autonomy than a kept woman who has to ask her husband for money to go to the grocery store or buy gas.