Esperanza is Mexican-American. She desires a more Americanized name. She has inherited her name from her great-grandmother, who was a lot like her. She is described as a "wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry." For this reason, Esperanza would have liked to have met her. "Horse woman" is referring to the Chinese year of the horse. People born in the year of the horse tend to be extremely independent and confident. She, also, mentions that it is "bad luck if you're born female" in the year of the horse and she believes that this is a "Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong." Mexican men want a woman who is going to be their trophy and do as they are told. They want their women to be obedient and quiet. They don't expect them to express their opinions or go against their husbands. Esperanza's great-grandmother did not want this life either, until her "great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier." This represents the way that women were treated by men. The comparison of her having a sack thrown over her head and carried away like "a fancy chandelier" shows that women were treated as if they were objects. A chandelier is proper and decorative. It is something that is there for decoration and not utilized. This is what men expected of their women.
Esperanza did not wish to be named after her great-grandmother because of what she went through. She feels that since she has her great-grandmother's name, she will face the same fate as her. She wants to be different and she wants to be herself. She doesn't want to follow in her great-grandmother's footsteps, because she doesn't approve of her fate. In the fourth stanza, she says, "And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow." The window could represent her way out of the life that she is stuck in. Her great-grandmother was looking out the window, out of her life, and into the world she could have made it in. She wonders about whether she made the best out of her life or if she was sorry that she never became everything that she wanted to become. Then, she states, "Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window." Esperanza feels that her great-grandmother just watched her life go by and was unable to do the things she wanted to do. When she says, "I don't want to inherit her place by the window," she means that she doesn't want to live the same life as her. She wants to live her life the way that she wants. Her name has a huge impact on the person that she will become, so she wants her own name. She wants a name that she can relate to.
In the fifth stanza, Esperanza discusses the fact that in school people cannot pronounce her name properly. She says, "At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver." She seems to like the sound of her name in Spanish, but dislike the sound of it in English, because of the mispronunciation. She goes on to explain how her sister's name, Magdalena, is not as pretty as hers however, she is jealous of her name at the same time, because her sister has a nickname while she does not. She says that Magdalena "can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza." This part of the poem explains another part of the reason that she does not like her name.
Esperanza does not like what her name represents when it comes to where her name came from, her great-grandmother, and what her fate was. She, also, does not like it because of the issue with mispronunciations in school. Another reason is for the fact that she cannot even come home and be called something else, like a nickname.
In the last stanza, Esperanza discusses the idea of baptizing herself under a new name. She comes up with suggestions to replace Esperanza. Her name is a representation of who she is as a person. So, she wants a name that she can call her own and feel like herself with. Baptism is reference to a new birth or rebirth in a sense, so when Esperanza says she would like to baptize herself, she means she wants to recreate herself under a better suited name for herself. She throws around some names, like Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Zeze the X is her favorite one, because she goes on to say "Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do." Zeze is a very simple name. It could very well be American and it is easy to say. When she says Zeze the X, this makes the reader wonder what the "X" could represent. When I think of the letter "X," I think of algebra problems and how you usually need to solve the problem for x. Esperanza wants a name, like Zeze the X, because it makes her a little bit mysterious. It makes you wonder, what the "X" could represent. "X" could represent anything about her. It could be her future profession, a characteristic about her, or it could be there just for people to interpret about her. Esperanza desires the ability to be anything she wants to be. She does not intend to have a set future, she wants to live her life and live it the way she chooses.
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| Sandra Cisneros |
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