The House on Mango Street

Esperanza poetically describes being sexually assaulted by a boy at a carnival under the laughing red clowns and tilt-a-whirl ride. She doesn’t say exactly what happened, but she implies that she was raped. She is angry at Sally because losing her virginity was nothing like what she said it would be. She is angry at the movies, “books and magazines, everything that told it wrong. Only his dirty fingernails against my skin, only his sour smell again” (100). Esperanza is angry that she called out to Sally over and over, but she didn’t come to help her. She blames Sally for getting her into the situation and for not rescuing her from the trauma. She recounts how the boy wouldn’t let her go and said “I love you, I love you, Spanish girl” before running off with his friends. 

Sally meets a young salesman and gets married. She has to move to another state where it is legal to marry so young (she’s in seventh grade). Esperanza thinks that Sally got married in order to escape her father’s house, even though she claims to be in love. Sally “likes being married because now she gets to buy her own things when her husband gives her money” (101).