Esperanza Cordero is a young
girl growing up in a Hispanic family in Chicago. Poverty forces them to move more
times than she can count. By the time they move to the Mango Street house, there
are six of them: "Mama, Papa, Carlos, Kiki, my sister Nenny and me."
Esperanza likes the new house because it belongs to them. They don't have to worry
about landlord problems, like broken water pipes that don't get fixed. Esperanza
has always felt ashamed of living in apartment buildings, and was happy to move
into a house. However, the house isn't exactly the fantasy that Mama and Papa
have always promised their children: there's no yard, the front door sticks, the
windows are tiny, and there are only three bedrooms. Her parents tell her the
house is temporary, but Esperanza doesn't believe them.
The theme of Esperanza being ashamed of her economic status is a prominent
one in the book. Esperanza does not exactly feel ashamed of her family;
in fact, the family is generally close-knit and happy, but she is keenly
aware of the disadvantages of being poor, and has dreamt of prosperity
from a very young age. When she says, "I knew then I had to have
a house," the reader sees the first example of her independence:
it seems that she wants a house of her own, and is determined to
get one. She sees through her parents' wishful thinking in an almost cynical
way (her father talks about the house they will get as he holds a lottery
ticket). She doesn't seem to trust them to acquire what the whole family
wants: a spacious, beautiful house. She juxtaposes her parents' fantasies
with the reality they provide her with: a house that is too small, in
a bad neighborhood. "I know how these things go," she says wisely,
when her parents insist that the house on Mango is not permanent. Her
parents are almost like children in her eyes: she seems to know more about
life than they do.
Esperanza describes the hair of each
of her family members: Carlos' is thick and straight, Kick's is like fur, her
father's is like a broom, her own is lazy and won't obey pins, and her mother's
hair is "like little rosettes." Based on the highly specific and artful
descriptions (Nenny's hair is "slippery--slides out of your hand"),
the family is clearly very close and Esperanza feels attached to each of them,
especially her mother. She remembers lying in bed with Mama, feeling safe and
smelling her skin and her hair.
Esperanza reveals herself here as a thoughtful, sensitive, literate
girl, who is deeply attuned to the world around her. She uses the type
of hair each member of her family has to symbolize something about their
personalities. Kiki, the baby of the family, has hair like fur, which
makes him seem cute and babyish. Papa's hair is "like a broom, all
up in the air," which seems to say something about his role as a
kind, fatherly figure, harried but still in control. Most significant
are Esperanza's descriptions of her own hair and her mother's hair. Esperanza's
hair never obeys barrettes or braids, which suggests her wildness and
her inability to be feminine and alluring in the way that she wants to
be. She describes her hair as "lazy," (rather than, say, free-spirited):
she seems to blame herself and find fault with her hair, rather than accepting
it the way it is. Her own hair is directly contrasted with that of her
mother, which is extremely delicate, "like little rosettes, like
little candy circles all curly and pretty" Her mother is girlish
in the way Esperanza would like to be. Clearly, Mrs. Cordero pays attention
to her appearance: she keeps her hair in pincurls all day. However, when
she lets her hair down at night, she becomes a strong maternal figure
for Esperanza, caring for her and comforting her. Esperanza specifically
remembers smelling her mother's hair when her mother lets her into her
bed. It smells like baking bread, a smell that calls to mind the comforts
of food and home. In this remembered scene, Papa is asleep when Mama lets
Esperanza into their bed, and his snoring fills their ears. The sound
comforts Esperanza, but is almost background noise: the scene is between
mother and daughter.
Esperanza describes
the boys and girls as living "in separate worlds"--her brothers, Carlos
and Kiki, refuse to be seen talking to their sisters outside the house. Her brothers
are best friends, but Esperanza thinks her sister Nenny is too young to be her
best friend, yet she feels responsible for her. Esperanza is an intelligent girl
who longs for a best friend her own age, one who will understand her jokes, one
she can tell secrets to.
Esperanza alludes to two of the main themes of the book in this short
chapter: the division between boys and girls (or men and women) in Hispanic
culture, and Esperanza's feelings of loneliness. The fact that Carlos
and Kiki will not speak to their sisters outside the house, even though
they have plenty to say when at home, strikes Esperanza as fake, a custom
she finds silly. Indeed, when Esperanza describes why Nenny has to play
with her (She can't play with those Vargas kids or she'll turn out just
like them) she seems to be saying it in a grown-up voice, repeating something
that has been said to her, but not really believing it. However, her family
is close enough that she feels a strong sense of responsibility for her
younger sister. Meanwhile, she feels lonely, but hopeful: she believes
that one day she will have a best friend. Until then, she sees herself
as a "red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor." This quote
reveals her as an ambitious girl who knows exactly what she is missing,
psychologically speaking, in her current life. She is well aware that
she would benefit from a friend who was intelligent enough for her to
talk to, with whom she could share her dreams. With no friends, only responsibility
for Nenny, Esperanza feels "anchored" to the reality of her
young life, unable to exercise the freedom of imagination she values so
greatly.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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