Part+I+questions


 * Chapters 1-4**: Answer these questions with as much detail as you can. The more you know about the following questions the better your understanding of the book and the main characters. Also if you have a question about one of the questions please start a DISCUSSION and one of your classmates or I will try to answer you question.

1. How does EACH sister lose her innocence or faith in the novel's opening chapters? __Dede__- was innocent because she was the only died. __Minerva__- performed for Trujillo, her friends (Sinita and Hilda), going to school __Patria__- got married and her third baby passed away, unburied her baby and saw the corpse. __Maria Teresa__- youngest and always wanted to do whatever her sisters did. Wrote diary entries. Lie for her sisters...help them cover up where they had been...Minerva, Minerva telling her sisters, has to bury her diary so it is not found.

2. Minerva says she, "got free" after she moved away to go to boarding school. What does she mean by this? Minerva asks to go to the school and dede stays at the shop and never gets to go. Free from the family to get an education to be a lawyer...

3. The Mirabal sisters all learn in adolescence that Trujillo, the dictator who rules the Dominican Republic, is closer to their lives than they initially thought. Give at least three examples of Trujillo's proximity to their lives. 4. What do the sisters learn about their father in the book's opening chapter? Dede will be the only one left to tell their story. The father only told dede's future He was cheating on the mom...not connected with the wife, lonely, really want s a son.
 * paid spies
 * Taught that he was very God like...picture has to be in all house holds next to Jesus.
 * Can go into any school and pick the best looking girls...and if they don't let him then the school can shut down.

5. How does Partia's faith shield her from the evils of Trujillo? How does it lead her to understand the nature of her country's dictator?
 * has a strong faith in God and then also has a strong faith in Trujillo.

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