It is important that Esperanza`s lyrical narrative voice is one of a child for much of the novel, for it allows for the development and subsequent social awareness across the text that can be analogous to the reader. As proposed by Marek, she must develop her understanding of ideas such as racism and sexuality with only accidental clues from the adult world and inadequate data from her peers. Esperanza`s maturity and understanding eventually grow as she reports and construes with the lives around her, a picture both the reader and Esperanza can piece together and deduce the importance of as the novel progresses. It also becomes significant for Esperanza`s dominant struggle of who she is and who she would like to be because her voice is able to develop parallel to her physical and emotional maturity. Because the pragmatic viewpoint of an experienced adult is absent, it allows Cisneros to use Esperanza`s voice to explore ideas of sexuality and female limitation from an unfiltered perspective. On account of Esperanza`s naïve frame of reference, it means the language is idiomatic, simple English in both its words and phrases. Her attraction to Rachel and Lucy as potential friends in Our Good Day is described in simplistic terms I like them. Their clothes are crooked and old. The straightforwardness of her attraction to them is reflected in the unembellished language she uses to describe them. However, this uncomplicated structure is misleading. Her childlike naivety is used against the reader to create a special effect between the child`s innocent report of a situation and the readers knowi
ng interpretation. Tension can therefore be established as a result of the juvenile voice within the novel and the gravity of some of the situations Cisneros depicts.
This is particularly evident in The First Job, where Esperanza`s nave trust in her work colleague stems from her adolescent perspective of the world. Sitting in the coatroom of her job, an older man approaches her, asking if she would please give him a birthday kiss, with the encounter results in the man grabbing Esperanza`s face with both hands and kissing her hard on the mouth. Esperanza`s innocent kindness towards the man causes her to be assaulted, her naivety placing her at the mercy of her sexuality. Due to the tension created by making Esperanza`s voice one of an inexperienced child, the harsh social realities of the world are exposed and can be explored. The child`s innocence is played against the novel`s audience, for the mature reader understands the gravity of the situation that has taken place, but Esperanza herself does not. This allows for a more heart-breaking takeaway, as prior to and including this instance, Esperanza`s view surrounding love has been clouded with guilelessness. For her to take the same manner with this encounter, unknowingly trusting the man because of his nice eyes, creates a frustration that can only be felt from an experienced mature perspective. The narrating voice controls our spectrum of understanding as the reader, and Esperanza`s inexperienced frame of mind means voice in the novel allows for the pains of adolescence and sexual curiosity to be combined and developed as the story progresses.