Feminism in Woolf and Cisneros’s Works

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf explores the theme of feminism in the twentieth
century, a time when women did not have much space of their own in society. The literary work
became a landmark of feminist thought in the twentieth century. Woolf provocatively and
unconventionally examines the material and social conditions necessary for authors. The author
is interested in these issues because she understood the plight of women, who had historically
been deprived of these basic necessities to produce literary works. Other authors were inspired
by Woolf’s ideologies. Such an author is Sandra Cisneros in her work, The House on Mango
Street. Cisneros’s work is a continuation of Woolf’s meditations on feminism in unique and
important ways, and this is evident through the growth and development of the protagonist,
Esperanza.
Woolf introduces the idea of women’s own literature and the historical and theoretical
issues surrounding them. She critiques the biases that were prevalent in the conventional
scholarship of her time. She depicts women as thinking women, able to write about their own
history. They had, however, been denied the space to do so. She introduces the idea of being a
female author during the twentieth century. She introduced the idea of women speaking about
women. Cisneros did exactly that through the character Esperanza. The young protagonist is
depicted as yearning for her own space. Cisneros describes Esperanza as a young, ambitious

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woman who dreams of independence. She says, “A space for myself for myself to go” (Cisneros
108). She, however, has to put up with her current situation where she has to share her space
with her sister in a very squeezed house.
Esperanza is a young woman living in poverty in a dilapidated apartment. In A Room of
One’s Own, Woolf talks about women’s true history. Woolf expressed her vision of creating
space in literature for a young working woman. Given the history of women, where they had
limited opportunities to receive an education, most works depicted women as housewives who
had to rely on men for their livelihood. However, Cisnerso turns that around when she creates
Esperanza, a young woman of Chicana descent who is also working. She is also seen as an
independent woman who likes to own her truth and tell her story as it is. For instance, she
describes her situation at home very accurately and lets the reader into her poor family’s life. She
even says, “I make a story of my life” (Cisneros 109). She does not want her story to be told by
others. She tells it as accurately as she can. This is what Woolf envisioned in women’s literature.
She looked forward to when women will tell women stories. Cisneros’s text is therefore in
conversation with Woolf’s text.
Woolf has an all-inclusive vision of the future of women in literature. She calls it
sisterhood and even writes that she hopes that the voiceless sister written about by Shakespeare
can live in future generations of women. She writes that she hopes that “she lives in you and in
me” (Woolf 117). Cisneros, on the other hand, created a sister in her work and gave her a voice
of her own. She is no longer the voiceless sister that Woolf laments about. Esperanza is named
after her great-grandmother. She is described as a “wild horse of a young woman” (Cisneros 11).
Unlike Esperanza, she was not lucky to follow her own voice. She stayed confined in her
husband’s house. Esperanza even wonders about the kind of life that she lived. Her worldview

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was restricted to only what she could see through the window of her husband’s house. This,
Esperanza sees as unfortunate. Esperanza’s great-grandmother is like the voiceless sisters that
Woolf talks about. Esperanza wants different for herself. She as her name, but she swears not to
take “her place by the window” (Cisneros 11). As Esperanza redefines inheritance in her Chicano
traditions, so does Cisneros. The author provides readers with a new approach to contemporary
feminism. While she inherited Woolf’s feminist ideals, she gave them a new twist that fit
contemporary society.
Overall, Cisneros engages in Woolf’s feminist ideas in her work, The House on a Mango
Tree. She creates Esperanza, a young female character who is more than what Woolf envisions
of women. In her work, Woolf speaks of only two classes of women; the middle and upper. She
does not create space for working-class women like Esperanza. Cisneros, however, agrees with
Woolf on the idea of having a room of one’s own. Cisneros had such a room, and she used it to
create fiction and give women a space in it. She also created Esperanza, a woman who yearns for
her own room. She does not need room belonging to a man, not even her own father; she aspires
to have her own space. While Woolf talks of silenced sisters, Cisneros gives the sisters a voice in
her work. She acknowledges that the sisters are no longer silent.

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Works Cited

Cisneros, Sandra. The House on Mango Street. Infobase Publishing, 2010.
Woolf, Virginia. A room of one’s own. Renard Press Ltd, 2020.