Summary
Esperanza makes the acquaintance of a
neighbor girl named Cathy who claims to be a descendant of the Queen of France
and who lives with "cats and cats and cats" in her house. Cathy tells Esperanza
who in the neighborhood she should avoid, including "[t]wo girls raggedy as
rats who live across the street." She says she will be Esperanza's friend, but
"only till next Tuesday," when she is moving away.
�
Analysis: Cathy is the first person Esperanza tries
to befriend (see "Boys & Girls"), but Cathy is leaving Mango Street. Her
belief-well-founded or not, readers never learn, but we are probably supposed
to infer that the belief is wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst-that
she is French royalty proves a strange counterpoint to Esperanza's dreams of a
"real house," a home. Esperanza's dream is understandable and probable, but, by
being placed into close proximity with Cathy's wild dream of grandeur,
Esperanza's dream, too, seems absurd. Cisneros may be using the juxtaposition
of these two dreamers to comment on the way in which the majority members of a
society tend to unjustly dismiss the hopes and aspirations of the minority
members-for, as the vignette's last sentence informs us, Cathy is moving away
because "people like us"-that is, Hispanics; more generally,
non-Caucasians-"keep moving in."
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