Windows

In the House on Mango Street windows are a big part of the story. To me they represent freedom and what they could be doing if they didn’t live on Mango Street. For example on page 11 it says,

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out her window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got. or was she sorry she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be.

This shows that she is almost depressed about her life, so she goes to the window. When she gets there she looks out and thinks of all the things that she could be if she wasn’t herself. It is almost like a place of revelation to her. This theme of a window appears a lot in the book. In many if the vignettes a women is seen sitting at a window looking out just thinking about how things can be different. When this happens later on page 77 it is Mamacita who is at her house alone. She only speaks 8 words of English, yet she still doesn’t let it hold her back. She says,

She sits by the window all day and plays the Spanish radio show and sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull.

This quote shows that Mamacita is very sad about leaving her home in Mexico and how it is better that she is here. That right there is a revelation in itself. She says that she sits there all day doing this, so it must be something very important to her. I can tell this because when someone is devoted to something they will spend a lot of time doing it. Windows are sort of like a gateway for people to escape their real lives and just think to themselves and imagine all of their dreams coming through. If you are ever feeling down and want to escape just go to a window and all of you problems will go away.