Icarus and Daedalus

Alison’s relationship with her father, although very atypical and seemingly destructive, was very loving. She grew up in a very morbid setting with dark family secrets she was not even aware of until her college years. Her father’s repressed homosexuality stirred trouble everywhere around him. After cheating and fooling around with young boys, he lost his job, his wife’s trust and sanity, and almost went to jail. Alison’s parents projected their anger towards her and her brothers leaving them confused and distant. She had witnessed her parents show affection to each other on only two occasions but other than that her parents kept busy away from each other through their own facades – acting and restoring a dirty, old house. Alison and her father were eventually desensitized to everything that should have upset them and both had a strange habit of fishing for sympathetic or shocked reactions that they wish they could feel.

The theme of this book was not necessarily homosexuality itself. Instead, she uses that as a main example of how much she and her father loved each other. She always found comfort in knowing that they were so similar. He and Alison never had solid conversations but they connected when her father recommended books and then discussed literature in school and at home. She wondered if the picture she found of him in women’s clothes was taken the same way her girlfriend took a picture of her on her twenty-first birthday. Even though she describes him as the driving force of chaos in her household, compares their relationship to Icarus and his father, she says that paternity is very important and that “…he was there to catch me when I leapt.”

Maria Teresa

On page 30, Maria Teresa begins her own story in 1945. She just had her First Communion and Minerva gave her a diary. She was very excited that everyone, except Papa, came to see her and that she got to new shoes with heels, which made her feel very grownup. Maria Teresa is very active in the church and often ruminates on god and the meaning of a soul. She comes home from school for the holidays but before she goes back, she celebrates Benefactor’s Day and is just as thrilled to attend a party with Trujillo as she was at her past religious ceremonies.

Shortly after returning to school, Maria becomes aware of Minerva’s involvement in supporting the regime uprising. She had always thought El Jefe was a glorious leader but she is terrified when Minerva and her atheist friend Hilda open her eyes not just by their theories or Hilda’s pamphlets but also the fact that Hilda disappeared and when guards come to the convent looking for her. At the end of the chapter, Hilda is caught by the guards and Minerva forces Maria to bury her diary in fear that the guards would find it.

Later, Papa is dead and Minerva buys her a new diary to relieve stress and get things off her chest. Maria has a reoccurring dream about her father and a wedding dress, which makes her very uneasy for the next few years. She then writes a letter to Trujillo with her mother to inform him of her father’s death. Also, after some altercations between Minerva and Trujillo, Maria wrote a speech for her in order for Trujillo to allow her into the University. She then graduates and attends the University with Minerva. Soon Maria doubts her desire to become a lawyer but Minerva pushes her to keep going even though later, Minerva graduates with a law degree but cannot get the license to practice. Instead, Minerva marries a man she met at school and has a baby.

One night, while Maria is staying with Minerva and her husband, she finds out that they are active members of a national underground and instantly knows she wants to join. She is now Mariposa #2, fighting for the rebellion. At the same time, she meets Leandro, who is also part of the rebellion, and they get married.

Human Heros

Trujillo murdered hundreds of thousands of people, ruled the Dominican Republic for decades, and was compared to God in textbooks and mottos. He is a legend that doesn’t need any more embellishments but Alvarez invents these characters that could be mistaken as historical figures. Nothing is too romantic and no character is completely Herculean which is why this book has the perfect combination of fiction and fact. She could have led the characters in a straight line from growing teen to insurgent but instead she lets her characters remain women while they journey through the rebellion. The sisters find husbands, have children, and approach the same problems as the common woman does but at the same time they strive for the goal of bringing down Trujillo. For example, even in the first few chapters when they are aspiring to become nuns but in the end become political radicals shows not only the broad spectrum of talent and intelligence that merits a novel but also allows the characters to go through a metamorphosis which is closer to real life than something like a birth rite.

At the same time, people do not often write about ordinary people who do nothing. Alvarez took an extraordinary story and imagined Trujillo’s mistresses’ friends, his guard’s victim’s family, or any other nth degree of separation that everyone could have easily forgotten then twisted a woman, like a strand of ivy, around the tension of his reign. The ordinary characters in extraordinary situations are incredulous but Alvarez exemplifies believable femininity and strength through timing and real life parallels.

Why did she write this?

After reading In the Time of the Butterflies, I realized that this is a very significant story especially since it is based on true events. It displays a powerful message of women struggling to find a way during political turmoil. Dominican history is not a popular subject in America and Rafael Leonidas Trujillo is not as common or well known as Thomas Jefferson here either. An astounding string of events like in this book goes overlooked but Julia Alvarez takes advantage of this to trigger American’s awareness of oppression and tragedies in the Dominican Republic under the reign of Trujillo.

Alvarez’s use of female characters took it into a deeper and more specific level, showing not only how women were affected under these conditions but also that women can be powerful enough to fight back too. She displays women as complex and emotionally versatile. For example, although some of these girls aspire to be powerful and successful they also gossip with friends and talk about having children and getting married. Therefore, not only was this written in order to share an incredible story but also to show that women can be influential figures who fight communism and corrupt dictators.

What about the boys?

In EC, Eve Ensler ignored the fact that growing girls are not the only people in pain. She talks about body image, sex, pregnancy, etc… but she wrote this book as if these problems do not happen as frequently, if at all, to boys of the same age. Even the title of the book is too specific to young girls. Teenage boys worry just as much as girls do even though some of their issues maybe different, overall they can be very similar. While girls feel pressured to be skinny and have bigger breasts, boys fret over being muscular and developing larger than their friends. Girls don’t want to be called sluts but boys are terrified of being called gay. She writes about adults’ impressions on teenagers but often implies that the boys are the ones that grow up and become the adult that judges and misleads the girls. In “You Tell Me How to be a Girl in 2010”, she rants about the many disasters in the world like war, environmental destruction, etc which is the result of the “authoritarian maniacs” “premiers, czars, and presidents” who all happen to be men. In the first two lines she writes, “Questions, doubt, ambiguity, and dissent have somehow become very unmasculine” as if it is a fact women are unable to make a difference. “What Don’t You Like About Being a Girl?” reinforces her writing. “Girls can’t control anything, Boys can do anything they want…People thinking you are weak…Girls can’t work even though, they are educated.” This is a stereotype that can be avoided but when it is reinforced by every feminist writer, it will continue for every generation of teenagers. Its easy to make a collection of stories to bolster a radical point but letting the reader develop their own opinion of feminism in a young girls life shows true talent.

Is EC a deviation or continuation of VM?

I am an Emotional Creature is definitely an extension of The Vagina Monologues with the exception that Eve Ensler focuses solely on teenage girls as opposed to women of all ages in The Vagina Monologues. The two books were very similar in that she confronts insecurities, abuse, and women’s sexuality however, I am an Emotional Creature is set in a different stage of life. For example, when the girls in I am an Emotional Creature talk about sex, it’s more about exploring what it is, how to use birth control, and understanding the risks of STD’s and unplanned pregnancies. The women in The Vagina Monologues talk about sex using what they’ve learned, what they like or don’t like, and their specific experiences over obviously longer periods of time. On page 50 of I am an Emotional Creature, a girl writes “Things I Heard About Sex” where she is constantly contradicting herself as if she has been taught so many things about sex but she is still naïve to the topic but the women in Monologues give solid answers when asked questions about pleasure. In Emotional Creature, two girls are at a sleepover and one wants to play would you rather but the other girl is uncomfortable when asked questions about dating, STD’s, and social stigmas just like when Ensler would push women out of their comfort zone in Monologues. Also, in Monologues, Ensler talks about violence against women all over the world involving rape and prostitution then continues in Emotional Creature with sex trafficking and abusive men. This is evident on pages 71-80 and 97-101 where are girl writes to Rhianna but empathizes with Chris Brown, another girl describes sex trafficking, and another girl explains the rules of how to handle this unwanted soliciting.