The novel In the Time of the Butterflies does an extraordinary job at weaving God and religion to the Mirabal sisters’ personal, public and intimate life. Throughout the whole book, God plays a strong role in their decision making. This was a lot more obvious in Patria than in all the sisters. The sisters could always count on God when they needed to make tough decisions about the regime. Since they were little girls, God was involved. Mama strongly believed in God and following the rule of God, doing what is right. In chapter one, when Dede is having a flashback to when they were young girls, Papa was telling the girls what he thought their fortune would be. “Padre Ignacio says that fortunes are for those without faith.” Mama was against all fortune telling and in believing that there is greater being/force than God. Like always, Patria would agree with Mama, but the other girls always defended fortune telling. “”I don’t believe in fortunes either”. Patria says quickly. She’s as religious as Mama,” While Patria used religion in a way that benefited her, Minerva used it to describe her feelings. “I was afraid she’d stick me in the sick room and I’d have to lie in bed, listening to Sor Consuelo reading …show more content…
After the Mirabal family met Lio, they all thought that he was a man of wisdom. Once the news of his revolutionary actions became known, Mama was against the girls seeing Lio, especially Minerva. “But I didn’t know they were communist ideas!” Minerva and Dede came together so that they could both see their ‘secret loves’. The girls weren’t the only one’s to be affected by God. The whole country was very religious. “paper fans with the Virgencita on one side and El Jefe on the other.” Trujillo wanted to make himself loved just the same as the people of the DR loved God. This is evident in the Mirabal household, where Trujillo’s portrait is hung up right besides a holy
In 1938, Minerva’s father permitted her to go away to boarding school along with her two older sisters, Patria and Dedé. Alvarez’s writing on behalf of Minerva speaks volumes as to the point of view Minerva had growing up. “And that’s how I got free. I don’t mean just going to sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. I mean in my head after I got to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I’d left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country,” (Alvarez 13). Minerva’s father, said that out of all his daughters, Minerva should have been born a boy. The other Mirabal sisters said that she was their father’s favorite daughter because Minerva acted the most like a son to him. She almost became the son he had always wanted, but never had. Due to her father’s influence, as Minerva grew up, she aspired to being a lawyer. Something which was unheard of for a woman in the ‘40s.
Within the novel, “In the Time of the Butterflies,” Mate, Minerva, Dede, and Patria had to create decisions to overcome obstacles that would transform each of their lives. Throughout the book, all of the sisters changed somehow. They all grew up, matured, and saw things how they never viewed before. While looking at these things at a different perception, they learned to make decisions that were sometimes brave and sometimes cowardly. Each of the Mirabal sisters had to choose whether or not to be fearful and give up, or be courageous and stand her ground, or make sacrifices to show her strength throughout the novel.
Castillo first shows the reader her distrust of patriarchy and its vertical structures through La Loca Santa’s death. The first structure under scrutiny here is the Catholic Church. After La Loca awakens she throws herself into the air and lands on the top of the Church, saying that those below her carry the same scent that she had smelled while in hell. With Loca high above the others she can be seen as a “substation” for a new Chicana Christ figure (Delgadillo 895). She tells those gathered below that she has been sent back to pray for them so that they would be able to see their Creator in heaven. Father Jerome pleads with her to come down so that the congregation could pray for her. She then reminds him that it is she that was sent to pray for them. With La Loca in the position of a Christ figure of the system, the structure of the system, in this case religion,...
Demetria Martínez’s Mother Tongue is divided into five sections and an epilogue. The first three parts of the text present Mary/ María’s, the narrator, recollection of the time when she was nineteen and met José Luis, a refuge from El Salvador, for the first time. The forth and fifth parts, chronologically, go back to her tragic experience when she was seven years old and then her trip to El Salvador with her son, the fruit of her romance with José Luis, twenty years after she met José Luis. And finally the epilogue consists a letter from José Luis to Mary/ María after her trip to El Salvador. The essay traces the development of Mother Tongue’s principal protagonists, María/ Mary. With a close reading of the text, I argue how the forth chapter, namely the domestic abuse scene, functions as a pivotal point in the Mother Tongue as it helps her to define herself.
Family is one of the most important institutions in society. Family influences different aspects of a person’s life, such as their religion, values, morals and behavior. Unfortunately, problems may arise when an individual’s belief system or behavior does not coincide with that of family standards. Consequently, individuals may be forced to repress their emotions or avoid acting in ways that that are not acceptable to the family. In the novel The Rain God, written by Arturo Islas, we are presented with a story about a matriarchal family that deals with various conflicts. One major internal conflict is repression. Throughout the novel the characters act in strange ways and many of the family members have internal “monsters” that represent the past that they are repressing. In his article, “The Historical Imagination in Arturo Islas’s The Rain God and Migrant Souls”, Antonio C. Marquez’s implicitly asserts a true idea that The Rain God is a story about repression. Marquez’s idea can be supported from an analysis of secondary sources and a reading of the primary text.
Leonora de Oliveira was the mistress of Domingo Alvarez once He arrived in Rio. She convinced her husband to buy Alvares from his former owner so she would be healed from this ‘gre at healer’. For some time he was able to heal part of her ‘maleficios’ and was treated fairly. But as soon his healing techniques were not working, his freedom was limited. As his owner, Leonor treated him like a’ feiticeira’ because of the cures were not working. Because of this, his ability to move around was dictated by the commands of his mistress and her husband. It also caused Alvarez to seek revenge on his mistress and cause Alvarez to feel different, like an outsider. He eventually was sold to Jose Cardoso de Almeida, who gave Álvares his freedom . With this freedom, he set up a public house near Ignacio Correa Barbosa in Rua da Alfândega. His presence in Rua da Alfândega caused Alvarez to be ‘a great scandal ’ due to the street association with the catholic community. Ignacio Correa Barbosa , a resident in the neighborhood, saw it as his mission to ‘denounce ‘Alvares to the secular justice officials and the Inquisition. By denouncing Alvares, this caused society to label him as different kind of healer from the Catholic norms of healing. By clinging to his practice of healing, this
It is influential to have strong people who want to fight for their rights. It is often easy to focus on oppression than it is to change it. It takes courage to be able to go against the rules of law. In both “In The Time Of The Butterflies” and “The Censors” , Juan and the Mariposas not only reveal their courage, but also develop significant symbols to the roles of each one of them during their time overcoming oppression. The Mirabal’s behavior towards their determination to fight for freedom, symbolizes the hope for freedom. The Dominicans were blessed to have four courageous women who went against the law in order to better their country for all. In the other hand, Juan role to overcome oppression resulted in his death and death to many innocent people. His behavior symbolize distrust, one cannot trust anyone, not even yourself. He was so caught up with his job, doing what he believed was right, he ended up censoring
They’ve set a shining example of how the will to make a difference can have drastic and incredible results effective or not to the immediate situation at hand, it encourages the surrounding people to question the value of their freedom. After the dictatorship fell, the trial of the murderers was on T.V. for a month, and they admitted to killing the Mirabal sisters and Rufino by strangulation. Although they died however, their sacrifice had not gone unnoticed. The memory of their sacrifice is honored today, by a national holiday and monuments, and through these closure is found, but their story is not lost. “Las Mariposas” leave an important legacy that enforces the ever existing
He had to get back at her by going through her family instead of going directly to her. Minerva was brave enough to slap the dictator. She was stronger than him, and she was incredible. Minerva was the most heroic of her sisters. She introduced her family to the rebellion.
“But Minerva, your own child—" I began and then I saw it did hurt her to make this sacrifice she was convinced she needed to make” (155). Minerva asks her sister to take her son, Manolito, because she is going to be moving a lot for her revolutionary activities. Her sister Patria at first doesn't understand how she could give up her child; but she realizes that it isn't that Minerva doesn't care. She's making an immense sacrifice for what she believes in. Minerva has consistently sacrifice herself in her combat of injustice, and expects the same of those around her. When Minerva got out of prison, she talks about sacrificing her peace of mind, “I hid my anxieties and gave everyone a bright smile. If they had only known how frail was their iron-will heroine.” (259) In the end Minerva finally sacrifices her life along with most of her other sisters.
Minerva influenced Patria by helping her understand why she hated Trujillo. While Patria was gazing at the picture of the Good Shepherd in comparison, Minerva said “They're a pair, aren't they?” (53). It then hit Patria, “That moment, I understood her hatred. My family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo, just as before, losing my baby, Jesus had not taken anything away from me. But others had been suffering great losses” (53). By comparing Trujillo to the Good Shepherd Minerva was able to get through to Patria. Though her constant tangents and speeches about the bad in Trujillo didn't seem to budge Patria, Minerva was able to connect the way Trujillo was depicted, to something that meant much more to Patria, her religion. This marked a turning point for Patria because she now truly believed and saw that Trujillo was bad. The Church gave Patria the opportunity to fight. “I couldn’t believe this was the same Padre de Jesús talking who several months back hadn’t known his faith from his fear! But then again, here in that little room was the same Patria Mercedes, who wouldn’t have hurt a butterfly, shouting, 'Amen to the revolution.' And so we were born in the spirit of the vengeful Lord, no longer His lambs” (163, 164). The church, being the thing that meant the most to Patria, was ready to fight. So Patria suddenly became ready to. Having
In the book “Bless Me Ultima”, by Rudolpho Anaya, there were two families represented, the Marez family and the Lunas family. These two families were very different, but were brought together by the marriage of Gabriel Marez and Maria Lunas. Through the eyes of their son Antonio one may see the comparison of the two. The differentiation of these two families is very clearly noticeable, such as in their personalities, the expression of their religion, and their everyday ways of life.
“It’s a well-documented fact that in Trujillo’s DR if you were of a certain class and you put your cute daughter anywhere near El Jefe, within the week she’d be mamando his ripio like an old pro,” and Trujillo “took women away from their husbands on their wedding nights and then would brag publicly about ‘the great honeymoon’ he’d had the night before,” (Diaz 217,
Diaz describes Trujillo by writing, “You might roll your eyes at the comparison, but, friends: it would be hard to exaggerate the shadow of fear he cast over the Dominican people and the shadow of fear he cast throughout the region” (224). Trujillo put so much fear into the people of the Dominican Republic that Beli did not know it would ever affect her. In a world where no one gives her such feelings, the Gangster makes Beli feel beautiful. But, the Gangster is a pimp and exploits women, which shows the degradation of women such as Beli.
Life in Mexico was, before the Revolution, defined by the figure of the patron that held all of power in a certain area. Juan Preciado, who was born in an urban city outside of Comala, “came to Comala because [he] had been told that [his] father, a man named Pedro Paramo lived there” (1). He initially was unaware of the general dislike that his father was subjected to in that area of Mexico. Pedro was regarded as “[l]iving bile” (1) by the people that still inhabited Comala, a classification that Juan did not expect. This reveals that it was not known by those outside of the patron’s dominion of the cruel abuse that they levied upon their people. Pedro Paramo held...