Esperanza

In the first short story "Boys and Girls" Esperanza is struggling with the females socially constructed gender. Her voice sounds pained as she points out that her brothers talk to her in private but not in public, that her brothers are only best friends with each other. She distinquishes men and women so greatly that she compares them to coming from different worlds. The comparason magnifies her biological essentialism way of thinking. Esperanza seems saddened that she can only talk to Nenny, but Nenny is too young to be her best friend. There is a bitterness to her voice as she dreams in longing about what it will be like when she has a best friend. Right from the beggining of Sandra Cisneros' stories of Esperanza, it is clear that she is being exposed to a patriarchial view. That patriarchial view is echoed throughout the rest of the compiliations of short stories. Esperanza conveys great satisifaction of looking good for boys. She walks around in her shoes with her friends so that boys will think she is beautiful. Her friend liked being called beautiful so much that she offered a bum a dollar to kiss her. Esperanza also displays self conscience when she said no to a boy that asked her to dance because she thought that her shoes were ugly. These great desires to look good for boys could possibly be a result of the belief that women are in a sense tools meant to please women; tools to be looked upon.