Esperanza's Box of Saints - Book Report/Review Example

Esperanzas Box of Saints Question Esperanza is a traditional looking Mexican women who has lived her entire life in a town. After she lost her husband she spent most of her life taking care of her daughter and that became the major aim of her life. Her life centres around her daughter and religion turns out to be a coping mechanism for her. This is because after losing her daughter religion became a medium via which she was able to ease the pain of loss. She may be said to be definitely more religious than average American people.

She prays regularly through a ritual of lighting candles and praying in front of them. She believed in a higher power, a power which helped her to calm her state of mind despite her life being in a disarray. After the death of her daughter Esperanza uses her religious devotion and faith to confront the world and get her daughter back. Gradually this does lead to a change in her own self.“Forgive her, Father. Forgive my daughter for all the sins they’re making her commit. I’ll do the penance for her.

Do you want me to walk with Coca-Cola bottle caps in my shoes? Should I crawl on my knees across town, choosing cobblestone streets, praying one rosary after another before the eyes on my neighbours? Or maybe I should stick needles between my fingernails, wiggle them until I bleed, and dip the tips of my fingers in lime juice. I’ll do anything you tell me to. I know you can’t absolve through third party confessions, but what have you got to lose?” (78) This quote identifies in detail Esperanza’s faith in God and the act of penance.

She is even ready to do it for her daughter and such is her faith. This indicates true devotion and religious faith on her behalf.Question 2Esperanza does change over the course of the novel but it is just the outer self which inflicts change and from the inside she is still the same religious Latin person who has faith in her God and religion, and that faith never wavers.In order to get to her daughter Esperanza has to turn into a prostitute as she wants to find the system of child prostitution from the inside.

“She imagined how she would look if she were to pass as a prostitute. Thick eyebrows. She widened them with a dark brown pencil. The left eyebrow seemed a bit higher, so she broadened the right one. Too much. She had to add to the left one again. Then the eye shadow. Electric blue with golden glitter sounded just right. Maybe a dab of fuchsia right alone her eyelashes. Mascara. A lot. …” (100)And on another occasion, this is said by the judge who had Esperanza as his prostitute.“The United States wasn’t the ultimate free country alter all.

Mexico wasn’t either. Instead, it was that piece of land where one met the other in an unavoidable frontal collision. But what he really loved about the border was that he could be a respectable, law-abiding, and law-enforcing San Diego judge and, in a matter of minutes, become an unidentifiable being sleeping in the arms of a prostitute, in a place where none care if what he did was right or wrong.” (159) Therefore, the question arises did she really turned bad? No! She did everything to get her daughter and from heart she was always a true devotee to God.

ReferencesEscandón, María Amparo. Esperanza’s Box of Saints. New York: Simon & Schuster,1997.