Esperanza's father comes into her room early one morning and tells her
that his father is dead. It is her responsibility, as the oldest child,
to tell her siblings and explain that they must be quiet today. Her father
collapses and cries, and she wonders what she would do if he died, thinking
about how hard he works for his family, and holds him for a long time.
This short chapter sketches Esperanza's relationship with her father.
Their affection for each other is touching, and Mr. Cordero is a very
sympathetic figure: a simple man who combs his hair with water, he has
apparently left his own family in Mexico to start a new one in Chicago,
but must return to Mexico for his father's funeral. Esperanza refers to
Mexico as that country, which seems to suggest the great difference
between it and her own home, and reinforces the sadness her father must
feel at losing something that was already so far away.
Esperanza feels terrible. She and her friends, as a game, impersonated
her invalid aunt--mimicking her shriveled limbs, the way her blindness
had changed the expression on her face--the day she finally died. Esperanza
remembers going to her aunt's house and reading to her, sharing her love
of literature, and reading her aunt her poems. She describes her aunt's
house, full of the smell of sickness and unwashed dishes, and her aunt,
lying in her bed a little oyster, a little piece of meat on an open shell
for us to look at. Esperanza wonders how exactly her aunt got so sick,
wondering whether it was because of something she did--falling off a step
stool, for example--or whether she was just randomly picked.
This chapter is a clear contrast with the previous one, which showed
Esperanza feeling safe and emotionally bound to her father. Born Bad
begins with Esperanza's rejection by her mother my mother says I was
born on an evil day.) The entire tone of the chapter is sheepish--Esperanza
begins by telling us how bad she feels, before she even tells us what
happened. The contrast between the maturity of her guilt--she understands
exactly why what she did was wrong--and the fact that she is still immature
enough to have made fun of her aunt in the first place, is striking. Feeling
so guilty is a turning point for Esperanza, because it makes her realize
what she valued about her aunt: her aunt understood her love of writing.
She appreciated Esperanza's poetry. And her death makes Esperanza realize
this about herself. You must keep writing. It will keep you free, her
aunt tells her, and Esperanza tells us, I said yes, but at that time
I didn't know what she meant. She seems to mean that, since her aunt's
death and the shame she felt after it, she has come to understand.
Esperanza visits Elenita, a witch woman who lives in her neighborhood,
to get her fortune told. Elenita's house is cluttered, with children and
dirty dishes everywhere, and lots of prayer candles. Esperanza has been
there before, and knows what to do. She puts a glass of water on the table
and Elenita asks her what she sees in it, whether she feels the cold of
spiritual presence. She doesn't see or feel anything, but lies and says
she does. She is there to find out whether there is a house in her future.
Elenita tells her she sees a home in the heart, and Esperanza is disappointed.
She wants a new, nice, real house. A new house, a house made of heart,
Elenita tells her, but Esperanza doesn't get it. She gives Elenita five
dollars and leaves.
Esperanza's description of Elenita reveals aspects of both their characters.
Elenita seems to have real power: she understands the home in the heart
Esperanza is making for herself through her writing and her general thoughtfulness
and independence. Yet she also does not seem completely genuine: she lights
a candle for Esperanza for five dollars, and works out of her house while
her children watch cartoons in the background. Esperanza, for her part,
both believes in witchcraft and is very skeptical of it as well. She notices
how dirty Elenita's house is, and seems to find it strange that her fortune
is read in a beer mug, but she believes, for example, that rubbing a cold
egg on your face will cure a headache.
Clapsaddle, Diane. "TheBestNotes on A Long Way Gone".
TheBestNotes.com.
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