Novel Questions: The House on Mango Street - Pages 49-69 In the “Hips” chapter concerning the girls’ images of themselves, I learned that Esperanza sees her hips as a sort of gateway and advantage, though she doesn’t know exactly for what yet, as well as they give her a sense of authority to some degree. “They are… ready and waiting like a new Buick with the keys in the ignition.
Ready to take you where? ” (pg 49) “… That’s right, I add before Lucy or Rachel can make fun of her.She is stupid alright, but she is my sister… it’s obvious I’m the only one who can speak with any authority…” (pg 50) Rachel and Lucy have already succumbed to a certain cultural view of women as eye candy and baby boomers. “[Hips]… are good for holding a baby when you’re cooking Rachel says… You need them to dance, says Lucy. ” (pg 49) Nenny is different from Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel in the sense that she is slightly less pack-minded, and is instead more individualistic. Nenny… doesn’t hear me.
She is too many light-years away. She is in a world we don’t belong to anymore. ” (pg 52) Even if her reasoning is off sometimes, she has her own sense of logic, maybe because she isn’t depending on the other three girls. Esperanza, speaking to the girls, says, “You gotta know how to walk with hips, practice you know - like if half of you wanted to go one way and the other half the other. [Nenny says] that’s to lullaby it… that’s to rock the baby asleep inside you.
”Esperanza is uncertain about sitting down at work because she got tired, and had no one to personally ask if she could sit, and could only observe. “… I started sitting down only when the two ladies next to me did. ” (pg 54) It’s different for her because, as found in the last question, she’s very pack-minded, and this situation required her to think on her own, which she’s not use to. The man on the night shift betrays her because “…he said we could be friends… I felt better. He had nice eyes and I didn’t feel so nervous anymore.
(pg 55) Then, he told her today was his birthday, and asked for a kiss, which she complied with “because he was so old” (pg 55). As she was about to kiss his cheek, he took advantage of her and forced her “with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth and doesn’t let go. ” (pg 55) He kissed her, forcibly, squelching her attempts of trying to simply be friendly. The bad news Papa brings Esperanza is her “abuelito (grandfather) is dead… esta muerto” (pg 56) Papa “wakes up tired in the dark” in a figurative sense.First, “wakes up” Could be the rising (or falling) to a new situation.
Second, “tired” Could be the weariness and grief he feels in response to this tragic event. The “dark” is the horribly unexpected death of Esperanza’s grandpa, perhaps Papa’s father. Aunt Lupe’s illness affected her family to the point that, because she had been sick for such a long time, they became numb to the idea of her death, as though it were far away, not constantly looming. Sometimes you get used to the sick and sometimes the sickness, if it is there too long, gets to seem normal.
” (pg 59) Esperanza, Lucy, and Rachel bought into this idea so much that they played a game that required you to “imitate [someone] and everyone else would have to guess who it was… The day we played the game, we didn’t know she was going to die. We pretended with out heads thrown back, our arms limp and useless, dangling like the dead…” (pg 59, 61)In Esperanza’s future, Elenita the witch sees a “Jealousy… sorrow… going to a wedding soon… [and she would] lose an anchor of arms. ” (pgs 63-64) Esperanza reacts with disappointment, because she came to Elenita concerning a house. Seeing this sadness, Elenita reads her cards again, and sees “A home in the heart… a new house made of heart. ” (pg 64) Esperanza is not comforted by this, still, and is instead confused.
Ruthie is an image of what Esperanza could be in a few years because Ruthie is pack-minded as well, only on her mother and her husband.She depends on her mother because she couldn’t decide if she would go play bingo without saying, “Should I go, Ma? ” (pg 68) and couldn’t make up her mind. She depended on her husband because, instead of taking up her job offers when she was young, she “got married instead and moved away to a pretty house outside the city. ” (pg 69) These two are alike in their dependency on others. Esperanza has learned from Ruthie’s experience (or should have) that by depending so heavily on others, she disables herself in every choice she makes.
