Beauty in the House on Mango Street“One day I will have a best friend of my own. The one I can trust with my secrets. The one who will understand my jokes without me having to explain them” (9). These are the nostalgic words spoken by Esperanza. In the novel The House on Mango Street, Esperanza is a young girl in the throes of adolescence who not only longs for a place to fit in, but also wants to be beautiful. This becomes complicated as Esperanza becomes more sexually aware. Throughout the novel, Cisneros argues about the importance of beauty and how Esperanza treats beauty as part of her identity. When Esperanza meets Sally, a new friend, Esperanza's whole world is turned upside down. Esperanza's view on beauty shifts from a positive to a negative view as she observes how beauty has damaged Sally's life..