Before We Were Free

Referring to Anon, he believes that “All conflict in literature is, in its simplest form, a struggle between good and evil.” —Anon What this essentially means is that in literature there is always good and evil but you struggle between being either or. This is a theme that is shown throughout Before We Were Free. There were multiple conflicts that took place in Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez. These conflicts were man vs society, man vs government and man vs group. Throughout the chapter you can see Man Vs Society. As you read through chapters 6 through 8 you can see that a great part of the Dominican Republic greatly despises El Jefe. Anita learns about this and sees it in action as she goes to school. As the police were doing car checks there were guns found in the car she was in. Police had seemed to have let it slide since they too were against El Jefe and thought of him as a great evil. This is a conflict because it is against people who do

Tio Toni had tried to assassinate El Jefe but had failed. He was hunted by SIM a different group of officers that searched all the homes until they came upon Tio Toni. Tio Toni had hid and tried to prevent himself from getting caught and being sent away or even worse killed. This is a conflict since it shows that Tio Toni is doing something for the good of the people against the bad El Jefe. To conclude, The story Before We Were Free by Julia Alvarez showed multiple types of conflict that lead up to the creation of the core of the story. The conflict is what makes a story, it is what creates plot and influences the events that occur throughout the story. Before We Were Free were able to demonstrate the different types of conflict and how it had an impact throughout the story. Before We Were Free proves Anon right that “All conflict in literature is, in its simplest form, a struggle between good and evil.”