"The Family of Little Feet" in the Novel 'The House on Mango Street'. Essay Sample

The House on Mango Street has used Shoes to call up a sexual image and the femininity of adults. Esperanza, who has been a child and is now in the adolescent stage, shows the antagonism between the desire to remain independent and attraction to sex by those attaining the adolescent stage. Feet have been used to symbolize the freedom of movement that Esperanza and other girls lack due to their low age.

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The vignette 'The Family of Little Feet' is insignificant in the first place since young girls who form a particular family of children have little knowledge of sexual life as well as movement rights. Since they are young, they remain under parental control. Consequently, at young ages, girl-child lack any attraction to men for sexual orientation.

In the novel, girls who are on the eve of adulthood have amazement at shoes. When Esperanza's neighbor brought them shoes, they realized that they possessed attractive womanly legs. High hilled shoes that are attractive enough are, however, not designed for young girls. Such a group remains therefore unattractive and would receive little comments of attraction from the adult world.

Therefore, this specific vignette entails a family of people with a surprise of little feet, who gifts Esperanza and her friends with shoes. It denotes that those receiving gifts are still young but learns the womanly attraction immediately after wearing the shoes. Lack of shoes restricts to some extent their movement to various places that have a connection to increased risk of sexual orientation and abuse.

Character identification, possible reason for inclusion in the novel and how their story develops themes in the novel, 'The House on Mango Street'

Sally is a close ally to Esperanza. She is a dreamful girl that the author describes as having eyes like Egypt, which nylons the smoke's color. She is vital in the novel as she builds on the main character that is considered a true friend. Sally serves to represent the dreadful cycle of violence in the domestic set-up and felt women's repressions in the foresaid street (The Mango Street). Domestic violence, battery, and maltreatment from her father relented sally to be desperate as she finds a man to marry in its avoidance (Burcar, 353). The theme of negligence by parents is seen when Esperanza reports sally to her mother, who is in a group of three boys in the garden. The mother is careless and selfish, and she doesn't get worried. Her dreams are in vain as she lands married by a man having a similar character to her father despite her tender age.

Alicia is Esperanza's neighbor and a university student in America. She is from the Latina community, attributed to girls' challenges. She has been a victim of molesting from her father. She is crucial in the novel 'The House on Mango Street' as she is up to a civilized community rather the cultural community that doesn't address faced challenges by women. She is a representative who upholds the theme of cultural change and the change of lifestyle. She is Esperanza's inspiration, good listener, Esperanza's role model, and an agent of change through education. Her essential role is noted when she makes an identification of Esperanza's relationship with that of Mango Street. The ending of the book is excellent. The future of Esperanza needs not to be told. The book has to be humorous for this case. Her desire to listen to her role model signifies a change in the future lifestyle and civilized Esperanza.

Theme

The theme of Sexual and Domestic abuse

The Chicano community in the novel has had a series of cases demonstrating women's issues. Patriarchal and sexual violence to women has been highly pronounced. As an example, Sally is subjected to maltreatment and battery by his father. She is up to find a man to marry in avoidance of such mistreatments. (Biddle, pg83) She serves as an excellent example of violence from family heads who, even upon escape, land in a situation of control by another man, "her father's attempts to control her sexually cause sally to exchange one repressive patriarchal for another."

While in a different case, Mc Cracken has a different note that men in the novel are portrayed to control the sexuality of women by imposing them in the form of violence. He also argues on the ordinary observation of men's brutal nature to their wives and daughters who, at some time, a raped "… her father brutally beat a daughter, and Esperanza's sexual ignition through rape." Also, when shoes are given as gifts to Esperanza and her friends, men are up to comment on their sexual attraction.

The theme of identity and belonging

The idea of identity and belonging has been shouty in the novel. Esperanza, who is weak, wishes to find identity and to belong away from her neighborhood (Cisneros, npg). She fails to identify and belong to the house. "This is not my house, I say… If shaking could undo the year, I've lived here. I don't belong. I don't ever come from here." Alternatively, the main character in the novel has a relationship with the house as she tries to discover herself. In the note of De Valdes, she (the protagonist) feels that the house is in its own a being that is living. The main character is greatly influenced by the notion of 'I' versus' Them' as used in the novel.

Works Cited

Biddle, Rodney. "A Conceptual Framework for Identity, Metaphor, and Theme in Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street." 62.2 (2019): 83-95.

Burcar, Lilijana. "High heels as a disciplinary practice of femininity in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street." Journal of Gender Studies 28.3 (2019): 353-362.

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Arte Publico Press (1984), New York