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…
novenas for the sick and dying.” She felt this way after Sintia told her the truth about Trujillo. God was always a consideration in their decisions. After they left Imacualda Concepcion, God still played a major role in their lives.
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
picture. Mate, the youngest of all four sisters, was also greatly influenced by God and religion. Even though she believed in God, she still went to Fela for spells. “I’m walking around doing a double spell.” After having lots of nightmares, she went to Fela for spiritual help. She gave Mate a spell for her father and a spell for Trujillo. Mate was also a romantic. She longed for finding her true love. She had a fling going on with her cousins Berto and Raul. When each of the kissed her she was so ashamed! “Please make me ashamed, Oh God.” She wanted to be pure, so she felt really guilty after kissing the cousins. Mate may not have been as religious as Patria, but she did greatly believe in following God. Overall, God was someone that the sisters relied on a lot. Some more than the others. God wasn’t just involved in the Mirabal’s family’s life, He was also involved in the whole country. The sisters became so religious because of how involved the country was. There wasn’t a place where God wasn’t mentioned. Even Trujillo was involved with the church. Though he wasn’t such a great person, he helped the church a lot, and the church appreciate it.
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.
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
Out of all the Mirabal sisters, being courageous was Minerva’s specialty to show how she feels without being verbal with her emotions, and to get her point across. Right from the beginning of the book Minerva chose to create actions that were not only courageous, but reckless. After Minerva found out about her other sisters she crashed her father’s Jeep into his Ford at his other lover’s house. As always, she wanted to make a scene, “My voice was as commanding as his. ‘You’ve lost my respect,’” (Alvarez 89). Her father was extremely disappointed with her, but she wanted him to know that what he was doing was extremely wrong. Crashing her father’s cars was definitely brave, and especially since she did it in front of her other family without any second thoughts. Towards the middle of the book, Minerva informed Mate about some things she did not know, “Manolo and Minerva have explained everything. A national underground is forming,” and this is when Minerva explained more about how they created a national underground to try to get everybody freedom no matter what happened (Alvarez 142). This national underground was a h...
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
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
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.
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,...
“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,
As far as religion goes the Lunas are far more religious than the Marez family. Religion plays a very important part in the life of the Lunas. They believe highly in God and everything else that is involved in the Roman Catholic religion. Maria Lunas is shown to be praying to the Virgin Mary on many different occasions in the book. The Lunas family has been encouraging Antonio to become a priest throughout his life, to the point that he believes he is obligated too. This is clearly shown in the book where Antonio states, “My mother was a devout Catholic, and so she saw the salvation of the soul rooted in the Holy Mother Church, and she said the world would be saved if the people turned to the earth.” On the other hand the Marez family is not very religious at all. They don’t believe that God plays a very important part in their lives.
“Jaimito think its suicide. He told me that he will leave me if I get mixed up in those things”. Here is where Dede confesses the truth about her participation with the Mariposas. Although later on she claims to be leaving Jaimito. Dede knew that she needed to join her sisters this was the only way she was going to show her loyalty to the “Mariposas”. Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa husbands were all involved with the “Mariposas” movement. Could this be the reason why they were so committed and involved with the “Mariposas” movement? The support that all their husbands gave them through the journey guided them to influent the change, and to them it was very important. We all ask ourselves could this be another reason why Dede felt so strong about getting people to hear he story, to find the interest in it. Dede made her family home into a museum, this way people can see how they lived when it all began. There is also a monument that tourist or native Dominican that would like to know the story of the Mirabal Sisters. Why is this so important? Its known that a lot of Dominican or people all around the world do not know the story of the Mirabal sisters and what they died for; the truth behind the lies and the unrealistic story telling. Dede’s accomplishment was to let everyone now what happened to her sisters to her father and how Trujillo dictated
...book. These symbols and recurrences are not coincidental or superficial, but upon investigation, give deeper insight into how deeply the mindset of our main character was affected. We now know that Felipe had almost no choice and was lulled into this household. Then there is a plausible explanation about the true relationship between Aura and Senora Consuelo. This book turns out to be a very strange life/death cycle that still leaves questions that need to be answered.
This is evident in two key moments in the story, both of which involve Minerva’s sisters. In the first, the manifestation of her inspiring Maria Teresa comes when Maria Teresa stands up to her. Behind the virgin mary, maria teresa is infuriated that Minerva won't tell her what they’re talking about so she confronts her about their conversation. This is very similar to the attitude that Minerva would have had in this situation, further illustrating Minerva’s inspiration of Maria Teresa. A second demonstration of Minerva’s inspiring courage in others, once again, comes through Maria Teresa joining of the revolution. While some will say that Maria Teresa’s real reason for joining the revolution came in the form of the man delivering guns, it’s clearly evident that without her sister's involvement in the rebellion, she would not have joined. This shows Minerva true inspirational impact. Even without being the principal reason for her sister’s decision to join the rebellion, the fact that she was a major part of the rebellion, a leader of the rebellion even, was enough for Maria
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.
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.
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...