The House on Mango Street (vol. II)

One of the parallels I drew between two characters we met this semester was Esperanza and Ike. In The Bear, Ike’s encounters with nature help him to develop a sense of identity and provide the virtues which will guide his future decisions. The revelations concerning his family’s troublesome past force Ike to wrestle with the legacy left to him. Ike understands who he is but now must decide whether his future will follow in the footsteps of his family or if he must brave a new path entirely. A similar path must be forged by Esperanza in The House on Mango Street. Esperanza finds herself in a community of individuals who are enslaved by their own feelings of shame and who live in the shadows of broken dreams. All around her are women filled with great passion but who have been hauled off to live a life staring out a window. But Esperanza, like Ike, decides to reject the inheritance passed down to her in order to forge a new identity. An identity marked by the same strong virtues of pride, courage, and humility that Ike discovered in the wilderness.