Esperanza's The House On Mango Street

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Huynh, Sydney: In The House on Mango Street, Esperanza goes through many experiences in her life as she is finding ways to escape poverty. While living in Mango Street, she learned from several women to only rely on herself in order to escape Mango Street. The two women in which I believe Esperanza learned the most from are Marin and Sally because of her desire of living independently and she does not deserve living with abusive men. Marin is the first woman that I believe Esperanza learned from. One example that shows this is that Marin "...can meet someone in the subway who might marry [her] and take [her] to live in a big house far away" (26). This shows that she relies on a man to change her life for her, meaning that she is not changing …show more content…
One example that taught Esperanza this is "...Sally had her own game. One of the boys invented the rules. One of Tito's friends said that you can't get the keys back unless you kiss us and Sally pretended to be mad at first but the said yes" (96). This evidence shows that Sally is playing games for older people, and that she somewhat enjoys playing with the boys. This also leads up to where Sally lies to Esperanza about sex. Another piece of evidence is that "Sally got married like we knew she would, young and not ready but married just the same" (101). This shows that Sally, like Marin, relied on a man to change her life for her. However, she ended up being abused by her husband like she did at home. Therefore, her life was not really changed from her life at home with her father. Sally's mistakes also taught Esperanza to depend on herself. Marin and Sally were the two women who taught Esperanza to depend on herself to change her life. Marin taught her not to rely on men because she may have to keep waiting and not doing anything to change her life. Sally taught Esperanza not to rely on others to change her life because lived a life in abuse from both her father and
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