Body Essay # 1
In this chapter we had learned the narrator’s name, Esperanza, which means “hope” in English. “It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine/ She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse_ which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don’t like their women strong.”(p110) this quote meaning that the narrator, Esperanza, explains that she was named after her grandmother and they share the Chinese birth year of the horse, so she expressed a requirement to have known her grandmother. She also expressed her belief to deflect her fate. So that they want to be strong. The quote “the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow." this also shows her grand mother who was physical and spiritual being was defeated by an unwanted marriage. She explained her grandmother is the one of the others who spend their lives looking out window and trying for escape in her hole life. Esperanza wonders if her grandmother made the best of her situation or she turned her anger at her husband; therefore, hurt herself more than her husband could have.
Esperanza would like to change her name to one that expresses true for herself, but she does so in a random way that we are not meant to take seriously. “In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting.” (p109) This quote from the chapter “My Name,” which is a metaphor for hope and expectation. Esperaza hates her name so much because her name carries a lot of connotations in Spanish. It expresses her Mexican heritage as well as a sense of waiting or prospecting. And it is long and difficult to remember. Another quote from the chapter, “It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.” (p109) this is also a great metaphor which explain to the reader that her name is come from her family’s...