Fantasy or Reality

Sometimes in life, people wish for things they do not have. No

matter how hard people wish on a star or on a candle, the wishes never seemed to be

answered. Everyone has felt that bitter disappointment on Christmas morning when

they finally realize that they were never going to be able to get what they wanted.

This is the same exact feelings that the characters in Cisneros' The House on

Mango Street. Unlike us, the disappointment for these characters last

throughout their childhood. Esperanza, Rachel, Nenny, Sally, and Lucy are among

the kids growing up on Mango Street. They all long for friendship, love, and a

better life, but all these kids face are the harsh reality of the "real world."

In the society that Esperanza and her friends live in, love takes a back seat

when it comes to relationships.

"Someday, I will have a best friend all my own. One I can tell my

secrets to. One who will understand my jokes without my having to explain

them"(11). These are the longing words of Esperanza. While growing up on Mango

Street, Esperanza finds herself in a community that she feels she does not belong

to. With all her heart, she longs for a true friend that she can tell her

dreams to and will understand her for it. These wishes seem easy enough to

grant, but Esperanza soon finds out that there is more to friendship. "If you

give me five dollars, I will be your friend forever"(29). Esperanza discovers that

she can not have anything for nothing. Rachel and Lucy sure enough become her

friends, but only after she helped them pay for the bike. Esperanza never does

truly find a real friend who shares the same goal as she does because all the

friends she has have more problems than her. For instance, Sally was a friend

for whom Esperanza cared for. When Esperanza was raped, Sally was not there to

help her and when Esperanza tried to prevent Sally from making a mistake, Sally

told her to leave. All Esperanza wanted was a friendship that would help her

escape her life, but all she ended up with were friendships that reminded her of

her broken dreams because in her society nothing was given for free and the

people she was associated with did not have the same goals as she did.

Another one of those broken dreams was the concept of love. Esperanza

was not the only one who longed for a man's endless love. Marin, Esperanza,

Rafaela, and Sally are all "waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone

to change her life"(35) These girls are all waiting for "prince charming" to come

and sweep them off their feet. They believe that the right man will come and

love them for who they are and take them away to a nice house. Marin says that

she will move in and marry her boyfriend, but the harsh reality is that she will

only be sent to a worse life. Cisneros uses the story of Rapunzel to describe

Rafaela's life. She longs to be free of the "tower" and do as she pleases, but

all she gets is a husband who keeps her locked up in the apartment and that is

where she will remain. In Sally's case, she wants a man to love her and she

thinks she can achieve that by using her body. Sally eventually gets