In Sandra Cisneros novel The House on Mango Street, the character Esperanza is most represented by the son Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates.
Throughout the novel, on of the thematic motifs that can be depicted is identity. Esperanza struggles throughout the novel with maturing and who she is as a person. In The Unlikely Candidates song Follow My Feet it sings in the first verse, ” There’s a fork in the road in front of me at the crossroads of identity. The Devil is standing to the left. He says, ‘Either way, they both lead to death.'” We learn in the vignette “Born Bad” that because Esperanza was born on a certain day of the year, she will go to hell. No matter how Esperanza lives, she truly believes that no matter how she lives, she is cursed.
As a result, we see Esperanza attempting to make her own decisions about the way she wants to grow up. Similarly, in the chorus of The Unlikely Candidates song it continues, “And the high road’s steady and steep. And the low road’s easy and deep. Guess I’ll follow, follow, follow my feet.” We also see in the novel that Esperanza wants to break away from conformity and the sexism that surrounds her to be her own person. Through this she discovers herself through the path she takes and through her maturing.
While Esperanza has probably never come across a song such as Follow My Feet by The Unlikely Candidates, it applies to her life and the thematic motif that Sandra Cisneros carries throughout the novel.