In the vignette “Boys and Girls” in Sandra Cisneros’s novel, “The House on Mango Street,” Esperanza describes herself as a red balloon. At the time of this vignette, Esperanza has no friends, so she believes she will be this red balloon until she can find a friend whom she can have fun with, trust with all her secrets, and have numerous amounts of inside jokes with. She refers to herself as a balloon because she feels like she is floating isolated in the sky, waiting in anticipation for something to happen. Floating around in the sky, standing out against the blue and white sky, she feels isolated from everybody, like she doesn’t belong or fit in on Mango Street. The fact that the balloon is red reveals how Esperanza stands out in her neighborhood, or at least feel like she does. She is temporarily tied to the earth because she is not old enough to fly away and love a successful life on her own. Esperanza obviously has hopes and dreams of one day doing great things with her life, but at the moment she is stuck on Mango Street to make the best with what she has. She tells of her desires to escape Mango Street as soon as she can, but eventually realized she will never be able to fully escape from the influences her childhood neighborhood has left on her. She must gradually work her way up to leaving, but return in order to help the others leave who can’t help themselves.

“Until then I am a red balloon balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor” (Cisneros 9).