Esperanza\'s Box of Saints One

Esperanza's Box Of Saints

One of them pointed out that she had no shoe and only one heel. It had certainly paid for them to get up early. Now they would have something to talk about over coffee" (72). The tone of this observation in the voice of the narrator deflates the seriousness of Esperanza's belief that has had an authentic vision that her daughter is not dead, and that she can bring her daughter back if she holds true to her belief and goes along with the physical acts of digging in the graveyard, as suggested by her visions. The "cemetery dogs" follow her, as Esperanza walks around, disheveled and dirty, making her seem more like a vision of madness rather than of faith to secular eyes (72). As the dogs swat at flies with their tales, and seen nonplussed by Esperanza, the image and lack of concern with which the animals view death (as the cemetery is their home) parallels the mundane nature of the physical concerns of the world that is expressed in the observations of the women.

The comments of the observing women show how Esperanza is seen by the majority of the community where she lives, despite Father Salvador's passionate belief that she will find her daughter and his sense of physical connection and perhaps desire for the grieving mother. For most people, Esperanza is a figure of fun, rather than a saintly woman, and the women seek to pass the time with gossip. One liberating aspect of Esperanza's quest for her daughter is that she is able to quit her job at the store where she works. "I can't work for you any longer," Esperanza says to her employer, "I have another mission" (72). In other words, her mission as a mother and a religious visionary has superseded her work as an underappreciated store clerk, a positive development in her spiritual journey.

Esperanza's Box of Saints pp. 106-129

By the way Esperanza, you are only allowed to be in your room and the common areas of the house" (128). As she speaks to Esperanza, issuing this brusque command, Dona Trini's face is like "an old male" mackerel and Dona Trini seems like a tough emotional nut to crack. But Esperanza, just as she took Father Salvador off guard, makes people like her character and quest (128). She wins affection, even of a tough, masculine woman like Dona Trini: "I like her," Dona Trini later confesses to another person (128). Dona Trini is initially mistrustful of Esperanza, because of the glow of goodness Esperanza gives off. Esperanza is initially mistrustful of Dona Trini, because of Dona Trini's harshness, and because of the woman's strange appearance. But Esperanza, over the course of her quest to find her daughter Blanca, has learned not to trust her eyes alone. The strange nature of where the twists and turns of her life have taken her has forced her to question her assumptions about goodness, life, and death, and she no longer trusts the surfaces of things.