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Carlos and Kiki are Esperanza’s brothers. They exist as opposites to Esperanza and Nenny; while the two sisters sleep in one bedroom, the two brothers sleep in another. The boys prefer not to socialize with Esperanza and Nenny in public, opting instead to make friends with the neighborhood boys. At school, they volunteer as patrol boys, and they romanticize standing outside in the rain while on duty because they’ve been influenced by the movie 300 Spartans to believe that suffering is good for your character.
Carlos and Kiki’s place in the novel’s narrative serves to expose the barrier between the lives of men and women on Mango Street. Esperanza observes that, from a young age, boys and girls live in two different worlds when it comes to how they interact in public. Carlos and Kiki are talkative, involved siblings toward Esperanza and Nenny at home, but when they’re with their peers, they avoid being seen in the company of their sisters. Although the brothers themselves are not figures in the book’s greater conversation surrounding misogyny and the mistreatment of women on Mango Street, they exhibit how early in life boys attempt to distance themselves from the feminine and cement their place in the world of the masculine. Their avoidance of interacting with or befriending girls as well as their adherence to typically masculine interests – like Spartans – is a microcosm of the greater gender divide on Mango Street. Carlos and Kiki’s presence in the narrative is spotty, showing how little their world crosses over with Esperanza’s.
