The House on Mango Street

"No, this isn't my house I sat and shake my head as if shaking could undo the year I've lived here. I don't belong. I don't ever want to come from here." (Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street)

This qoute by Esperanza and the book, The House on Mango Street, as a whole reminds me of two songs from Les Miserables: On My Own and I Dreamed a Dream. In this musical, interpreted from the book by Victor Hugo, a young lady named Eponine is madly in love with a man from the city where she lives, but he is in love with another woman. After certain events she realizes that she will never be with him. Lyrics from her song include:

"I love him

 but everyday I'm learning

 all my life I've only been pretending

 Without me

 his world would go on turning

 A World that's full of happiness

 that I have never known"

Esperanza also has to face her reality during the book that she is part of Mango Street despite all her efforts to fight against it. Throughout the book Esperanza met many other woman that shared similar traits that she does. Along with her friends she discovers her maturing body, like hips and an interest in boys. She also met older women who "escaped" from mango street just like she did through writing and education. Towards the end of the book Esperanza realizes that mango street will always be a part of her although she may not want it to be.

Another fantastic song from Les Miserables is sang by a character named Fantine who has just been fired and is abandoned. She sings:

"I had a dream my life would

 be so different from this hell I'm living

 So different now from what it seemed

 Now life has killed

 the dream I dreamed."

This song also reminds me of several of the women in the novel. The novel starts with Esperanza as a child, and as it progresses she has more and more experiences, like being raped, that shatter her childhood dreams and make her grow up too quickly. There are also several women who talk about waiting for a man to come and marry them to take them away. Despite all of this talk, this never actually happens in the book. Unfortunately decisions we make or outside forces that we cannot control shatter the childhood dreams that we have.