Symbolism In The House On Mango Street

The subject of shoes is a recurring symbol in The House on Mango Street. Esperanza notices and observes various pairs of shoes belonging to different characters throughout the story. The shoes can stand for many distinct concepts, such as a journey, growth, or characters’ personalities. However, it can be interpreted that the most prominent idea that they symbolize is sexual maturity. Sandra Cisneros uses a number of vignettes, including “The Family of Little Feet,” “Chanclas,” “Sire,” and “Sally,” to clearly display the relationship between sexual maturity and shoes as well as how the symbolism relates to the theme of growing up in the novel.
High heels are usually worn by mature women, so although they make the girls’ feet look a bit awkward, they enhance the girls’ appearances. Esperanza is surprised by how foreign her own feet look, as implied by the word “scary” in the quote, but she and her friends are nonetheless fascinated by the effect that the shoes have on their bodies. Their new, more grown-up looks attract the attention of men, who stare at the girls with sexual intentions as they strut around the neighborhood. Since the girls consider becoming beautiful as a part of maturing, their increased sexual attractiveness indicates that the shoes symbolize sexual maturity. After a bum man disturbingly offers Rachel a dollar for a kiss, the girls get frightened and run back to Mango Street. They take the shoes off and hide them “until one Tuesday [Lucy’s] mother, who is very clean, throws them away. But no one complains” (42). As the shoes are thrown away, the girls abandon their temporary, seemingly sexually mature selves and return to their natural identities as innocent children. None of them say
In the vignette titled “Sire,” Esperanza mentions Lois, Sire’s girlfriend, and the fact that she “doesn’t know how to tie her shoes” (73). This indicates Lois’s helplessness, which is assumed to be part of her attractiveness and identity as a mature woman. Esperanza also says that, unlike Lois, she knows how to tie her shoes. Her ability to do something that Lois can’t suggests that she is stronger than Lois and that they are not attractive in the same way. Although Esperanza knows that she does not want to or have to be weak in order to be attractive, she is jealous of the affection that Sire gives Lois. In both Lois and Esperanza, a shoe-related action is connected to sexual attractiveness, showing again that shoes symbolize sexual maturity. In a later chapter, titled “Sally,” Esperanza describes beautiful Sally, who the boys at school find attractive, and speaks admiringly of Sally’s shoes: “My mother says to wear black so young is dangerous, but I want to buy shoes just like yours, like your black ones made out of suede, just like those” (82). The characteristics of Sally’s shoes can serve to demonstrate Sally’s striking beauty, as the words “black” and “suede” illustrate her chic, sleek fashion and sexual maturity. Esperanza’s mother points out that wearing black is