Mama also uses this proverb to warn Minerva about traveling to visit Puerto Plata. Minerva refuses to listen to her sister, calling the talk "silly rumors," but this is a mistake and she is killed. She takes it to mean that popular opinion is always right, and in this case, it is. Dede says it to Minerva as she tries to convince her that the rumors that Trujillo wants her dead are not silly. This means, "Talk of the people, voice of God," and it is an old proverb. "Voz del pueblo, voz del cielo." Chapter 9, page 199 This quotation thus demonstrates the authoritarian theme that permeates the novel. The rainy weather is the physical incarnation of the metaphorical storm that began for the Mirabal family when Minerva slapped Trujillo at the Discovery Day dance: "And then the rain comes down hard, slapping sheets of it." It also represents Trujillo's power the island is saturated in wetness as well as in the influence of the dictatorship. Minerva is driving back from the capital with her parents after Enrique Mirabal, now insane, is released from prison.
#Julia alvarez aha moment how to
"We've traveled almost the full length of the island and can report that every corner of it is wet, every river overflows its banks, every rain barrel is filled to the brim, every wall washed clean of writing no one knows how to read anyway." Chapter 6, page 117
Also, her home had been a cage of rules, while the country is a cage of violence and authoritarian rule.
#Julia alvarez aha moment free
The cage metaphor recalls the theme of entrapment because of the dictatorship in the Dominican Republic, none of its citizens is truly free except in the way Minerva describes here. This use of "free" fits with the idea of a liberating, "liberal" education. Minerva uses "free" to mean enlightened at Inmaculada Concepcion, she realizes that the Trujillo she has believed in does not exist, and the seeds of a revolutionary are sown within her. I mean in my head after I got to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I'd just left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country." Chapter 2, page 13 I don't mean just going to sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. This quotation also foreshadows the known outcome of the family's history: earlier in the chapter, it has been established that Dede is, in fact, "the only one left to tell their story." Already there are spies who can report the family to Security for her father's negative comment. For Dede in 1994, this is "the moment she has fixed in her memory as zero," when the events that led to the deaths of her sisters began. By the time it is over, it will be the past, and she doesn't want to be the only one left to tell their story." Chapter 1, page 10ĭede feels this chill as her family moves inside from under the anacahuita tree, where they have been relaxing, after her father mistakenly mentions Trujillo's name in an unfavorable way. "A chill goes through her, for she feels it in her bones, the future is now beginning.
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