Myself By Sandra Cisneros

Every Woman Not for Herself Ms. Sandra Cisneros expresses the life message that "Family is a gift but for some women, it can be a burden and curse too", through the characters Marin, Alicia, and Minerva in her series of vignettes called The House on Mango Street. In a near by apartment there lives a Puerto Rican family who has a cousin that "...can't come out-gotta babysit with the Louie's sisters...can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away. But next year, Louie's parents are going to send her back to her mother..." (Cisneros 23-27). Marin is in her relative's home but she does not want to be there. She wants to go far away with a rich man but she is nit able to due to her family duties. Marin loves her family but they burden her with duties in the family that she must accomplish and by doing
Also, another neighbor named "Alicia who inherited her mama's rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university. Two trains and a bus,because she does not want to spend her whole life in a factory or behind a rolling pin" but rather as a successful woman (Cisneros 31-32). Alicia has a family of numerous younger siblings and an irresponsible and abusive father who all depend on her to live. She must make bagged lunches for her siblings in place of her parents but she also must go to university too. Her dream is for a better life than her family has so she studies all night only to sleep for a few hours to be cursed with having wake up to take care of her family who takes a toll on her strength. A teenage mom is friends with our protagonist of this book and she "Minerva is only a little bit older than me but she already has two kids and a husband who left...Minerva cries because her luck is unlucky...She has many troubles, but the big one is her husband who left and keeps leaving...asks what