Dream
Esperanza's dreams are often mentioned in this book.
She dreams to have an ideal friend:
"Someday I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain to them. Before then I am a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor. "
But actually, the last sentence is more important. "A balloon" shows her strong desire to be free. "tied to an anchor" tells us that, there are things that restrict her to do so. Such as her responsibility for her sister Nenny or her parents don't expect her to be strong. Esperanza mentions three women to imply this dream and the restrictions.
First is her grandmother who is also called Esperanza, which "in English... means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like number nine. She is "also a horse woman "which is supposed to be a bad luck if you're born female -- but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese like the Mexicans, don't like their woman strong". "I have inherit her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." "Number nine" means waiting. 9 is the number before 10, which is considered to be a number before changing. Esperanza use this number to show that, she is growing up and she is waiting to change, to be mature. "Don't like their woman strong" gives us an example of restriction. " don't want to inherit her place by the window" tells us that she don't want to be the traditional Mexican woman but want to get rid of all the restriction to be free, to be strong enough to realize her own dreams.
Second is her good friend Alicia who " is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father says do not exist. Is afraid of nothing except four-legged fur. And fathers. " Alicia is a girl who just like Esperanza wants to be free and strong so she studies very hard and finally can go to university. We will pay attention to "fathers". How can she have so many fathers? Here, "fathers" just means men who restrict her and hope her to be a traditional woman, acting like her father.
Third is Aunt Lupe. She likes very much Esperanza's poem:
I want to be
like the waves on the sea,
like the clouds in the wind.
but I am me.
One day I'll jump
out of my skin
I'll shake the sky
like a hundred violins.
She says," You just remember to keep writing, Esperanza. You must keep writing. It will keep you free..."
It is a dream in Esperanza's heart that never changes but there is another dream of Esperanza that changes as time goes by. That is the house in her dream, which is a core image in this novel.
At first she wants the house that has "running water and pipes that worked. And inside it would have real stairs, not hallway stairs, but stairs inside like the houses in TV." The first ideal house in Esperanza's mind don't have to be very big or decorated well but can meet their basic needs and is influenced by the programs on TV. So we can know, at first she just wants to live away from poverty and her idea is not that mature.
Later on, the kind of house she wants is a house on the hill so that she is "close to the stars". The more important is that, she will offer the attic of her house to passing bums. Esperanza begins to be sensitive to the discrimination. She doesn't want to be looked down on just as she is brown or poor. Furthermore, she thinks the rich should help the poor if they can by saying that if she is rich, she will help the bums.
At end of the novel, the house she wants is "a house all my own. Only a house quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem." This house shows the inner desire of a much more mature Esperanza. It is a house most connected to her dream to be free. It is said that, the subtitle of this part corresponds to Woolf's work. So this house may not be the final decision of Esperanza.
While growing up, Esperanza keeps on enriching her dream, revising her dream. Yes, dreams need analyses, criticisms and revisions.
Leave and return
The dream to be free and free from restrictions comes true as Esperanza leaves the Mango Street. Three sisters say, " When you leave you must remember to come back for the others. A circle, understand?" It is a responsible to come back just as Alicia says, " Like it or not you are Mango Street, and one day you'll come back too. Not me. Not until somebody makes it better." So at the end of the book, Esperanza says," They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out."
Leave is for dream and return is for responsibilities. The ones left behind are those you are responsible for and they will always be your support behind you.
Slowly wander about on Mango Street!
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