A careful analysis of this excellent novel reveals that
the conflict facing Esperanza operates on many different levels. On the one hand, it is
an external conflict, as Mango Street is shown to be part of a barrio where the people
who live in it struggle against prejudice, poverty and oppression. Even those who should
know better, such as the nun in the very first vignette, judge Esperanza and those in
Mango Street based on the quality of their
accommodation:
You live there? The way she
said it made me feel like nothing. There. I lived
there. I
nodded.
This is a theme that
runs throughout the novel, as various characters face this conflict of being judged
based on their skin colour, their ethnicity, the language that they speak and where they
live.
Yet at the same time, we see that Esperanza also
faces a massive internal conflict that is based around expectations and the lives that
other women lead. As she grows up, Esperanza sees women marry young, have children
young, and suffer domestic abuse as they are trapped in so many different ways. In
"Beautiful and Cruel," we see how Esperanza responds to the internal conflict of being
forced to choose between following societal expectations and making her own way. In a
sense, of course, this is also an external conflict, as Esperanza feels the pressure
that others place upon her to be more feminine, for example her parents. Note how this
conflict, and Esperanza's response, is presented:
My mother says when I get older my dusty hair
will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up
tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and
chain.
Esperanza deliberately
decides to be different from the other "tame" women around her by standing up for
herself and not accepting a situation that would entrap her. There will be no "ball and
chain" for her.
Thus we can see that Esperanza faces many
different kinds of conflict in this excellent novel.
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