Saturday, November 02, 2013
Father figures
I found it interesting how Trujillo was a kind of father figure, how his images were required everywhere and how people were indoctrinated to think of him as the almighty. Not surprising in a brutal dictatorship, I guess, but I found it very poignant how even people who thoroughly despised him, like Patria, still seemed to have a kind of warped faith that he could do good in the end, like there was some kernel of humanity in him that if you said the right prayer or whatever that he could be appealed to like a beneficent deity. It was so sad. He was like an angry father/abusive husband ruling the household with an iron fist and everyone hated him, but he was the only power in the household, the one who, if properly appeased, might change the course of events. Such a terrible, twisted psychology.
The Mirabal sisters' example proved to the people that they too had some power, that the almighty's absolute hold on it was illusory, a mirage that could be shattered with a bit of solidarity among the oppressed.
What did you think about this? Did you think Trujillo was sufficiently fleshed out to make the people's hatred and fear of him believable? Did you want more background?
And, not sure if this is specifically related, but what did you think of the girls' real father as a father figure? Did their relationship to him have any bearing on their relationship to Trujillo as father figure?
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3 comments:
I thought the portrait of Trujillo was pretty well-done, even if it all came through anecdotes. The focus seemed to be on the aspects that would most frighten and outrage young girls like the Mirabals, like his basically kidnapping underage girls to satisfy his sexual appetite.
The father figure aspect is fascinating. It's typical of these cults of personality, that the people are ex
Oops, stupid phone.
The people are expected to fear and respect but also love their dictator. The required photo in every home seems especially nuts.
What did you make of the Mirabals' father? The drunkenness, the second family. I wondered how much of that was factual and how much from Alvarez's imagination. Do you think it had some bearing on the story?
I thought about why Alvarez included the father stuff. She probably could have avoided it, but I felt like the timing made that difficult — and also just the intellectual honesty of not omitting something that was a big deal in their lives. It also showed the deeply patriarchal society they were living in, where men could do basically whatever they wanted vis a vis women. Even so-called decent men like their father could do something completely shitty like have a whole second secret family, and that crime paled into comparison to what Trujillo and his cronies were doing. Women had such a narrow, almost nonexistent latitude for wrongdoing of any kind.
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