Examples Of Leimotif In The House On Mango Street

In Sandra Cisneros's The House On Mango Street the author's use of leimotif shows the reader that where your feet take you and how you look establishes who you are. Throughout the book Cisneros uses leimotif many times. In chapter six, "Our Good Day", Esperanza is explaining how rugged Lucy and Rachel look. She says "They are wearing shiny Sunday shoes without socks. It makes their bald ankles all red, but I like them." (15). Rachel and Lucy are two kids that come from poor families. They only wear their Sunday shoes because their other shoes have become too small to wear and since they don't have any money to buy new shoes they have to wear their Sunday shoes although they hurt. "I'm wearing the new dress, pink and white with stripes, and new underclothes and socks and the old saddle shoes I wear to school, brown and white, the kind I get every September because they last long, and they do. My feet scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress", says Esperanza while at her cousin's baptism party, where all she can think of is how horrible she looks (47). Esperanza has all new clothes, but the only thing she explains in detail is her shoes. To her, her shoes mean everything to her, she has everything new on, and she looks beautiful, but if she still has her everyday shoes on which brings down the whole outfit because it's not everyday that she gets to go to a party, and because she has her old shoes on she
Papa is very strong hearted, he is strong inside and out. His hands and shoes represent his physically strong appearance, and his emotionally strong heart. In Chapter twenty-two, "Papa Who Wakes Up Tired in the Dark", Esperanza's grandfather died and papa has to tell her the news, and just like an egg under pressure, his tough shell breaks and he can't hold his grief-stricken emotions