The House on Mango Street

There are many examples of patriarchal binary thought throughout the reading. The opening paragraph itself seems to set up an opposition: “The boys and the girls live in separate worlds. The boys in their universe and we in ours”. The rest of the paragraph seems to enforce the idea that boys are superior to girls. Her brothers “can’t be seen talking to girls” outside of the home. Because of this supposed superiority, Carlos and Kiki can’t be friends with their sisters but instead have to be friends with one another because they are both boys. We can see that the narrator, Esperanza fights against this binary thought. She wants “a best friend”: “One I can tell my secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain them.” She never specifies a gender for her best friend. She just wants someone who will treat her like an equal. Throughout the reading, the female universe only seems to cross paths with the male universe when a man deems it okay, when a man looks at a woman, when a man wants to use a woman for his own pleasure and gain.

Another example of patriarchal binary thought could be that the women are always described as either pretty/beautiful or ugly: “We are tired of being beautiful”, “my feet are ugly”, “the boys at school think she’s beautiful”, “I am an ugly daughter”. Whenever a female character is called beautiful or ugly, it is usually in regards to her relationship to men. A woman can only go anywhere by marrying and she will only be desired by men if she’s beautiful: “Those boys that look at you because you’re pretty…”, “I am an ugly daughter. I am the one nobody comes for.” Even in Esperanza’s mind, being pretty and having men look at you seems to be the superior choice. She is embarrassed to dance at her cousin’s baptism party because she is wearing “ugly” shoes. She dreams of Sire holding her tight like he does his “tiny”, “pretty” girlfriend. She wants to be like Sally because all the boys think Sally is beautiful. She wants to experience the love Sally has told her about. However, in a few sections of the reading we can see Esperanza fighting against this patriarchal way of thinking. In the chapter, Sally, she says, “You could go to sleep and wake up and never have to think who likes you and doesn’t like you. You could close your eyes and you wouldn’t have to worry what people said because you never belonged here anyway and nobody could make you sad and nobody would think you’re strange because you like to dream and dream… [you could lean against someone] without somebody saying it is wrong, without the whole world waiting for you to make a mistake when all you wanted…was to love…and no one could call that crazy.” Although her identity has definitely been shaped by the patriarchal culture, Esperanza is aware that there are things about her that can’t and shouldn’t be determined by society. I found it interesting that in the last section, the three aunts do not describe her as ugly or beautiful, according to binary thinking. They simply tell her “she’s special”, giving her individuality and not just seeing her as a woman in a man’s world.