The House of the Spirits and Kiss of the Spiderwoman Essay

This image illustrates how Trujillo's system truly brunts the lives of Patria, her sisters, and their fellow people. To them, Trujillo is almost godlike. He usually gives them arcane commandments, smites those who contravene his power, and is delimited by wealth. Patria shows her disbelief in how callously God is behaving toward her because of her child's death. Throughout In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez’s Patria Mirabal develops from an optimistic young Catholic girl to a woman who doubts; subsequently, that educators can further come to understand the influence of God on one’s actions.

The Kiss of the Spider Woman tells us of the story of Molina, a transgender male in jail for perversion of a minor, and Valentin, a political prisoner. As the novel progresses, both characters change through their shared experiences, quarrels, ideology, compassion, care, and eventually, their relationship. Molina’s blatant gayness is evident, while Valentin’s sexuality eventually proves contingent in spite of his apparent masculinity. Despite Valentin’s love for a bourgois, Marta, Molina inflicts a new desire in him. This is plain to see in the last story in the novel: the Spider Woman. While in a dream produced by an injection of Morphine, Valentin tells his love, Marta, a story about a woman trapped in a web which comes out of her body. Like Molina, the Spider Woman both disgusts and soothes Valentin.

In the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author uses symbolism and characterization to paint the scene of a girl in a literary fiction that has lost her way and ends up finding herself within her Grandmother through the cycles of life. Through the eyes of an unnamed girl we relive a past that has both a traumatic ending and a new leash on life; however, we do not get there without first being shown the way, enter “The Moths”.

In George Saunders essay “thank you, Esther Forbes”, he describes how an author who he read during his youthful age helped him to understand why and how sentences can be important. The essay is written on a more personal note about a nun named Sister Lynette who helped Saunders to develop his perception of sentences. In third grade at St. Darmian School, Saunders was given the novel “Johnny Tremain” by Esther Forbes and that was a turning point for him. This was because the book provided him with a different understanding of the joys of reading as well as writing. On the other, “escape from spider head” helps in providing an analysis of the strengths of a man being put to test. The limits presented in the story are classified as physical, emotional as well as moral. The theme of the story is searching for humanity which makes the readers ask themselves, what makes us human? According to “escape from spider head” humans are considered to be innately empathetic in nature and they are considered to be people who are against the infliction of pain as well as discomfort which is caused on another innocent human being. The aim of the essay is to elaborate more on the connection existing between “Thank you, Esther Forbes” and “Escape from Spiderhead” in terms of the details presented in the two stories.

In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, creates a fiction story about the true events of the Mirabal sisters and taking over the Dominican Republic’s government. In the Time of the Butterflies contains the classic war between passion and responsibility. Personal causes, love, a desire for revenge, determination to redress a wrong, or other emotions or drives conflict with moral duty. In In the Time of the Butterflies, many characters confront the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. Patria, the oldest Mirabal sister, struggles with her faith, and deciding whether to join the revolution with her sisters, or to follow her faith. Patria’s religion was an important aspect of her life since she was very young and throughout the course of the story, she attains and loses her faith in God.

Throughout history women have always been minimized from social, sexual , and political aspects juxtaposed to men. Just like in the novel  In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, the author uses the Mirabal sisters to demonstrate the inequalities set in the Dominican Republic. The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo causes the Mirabal sisters to come together and overthrow Trujillo’s regime.Trujillo. Rafael Trujillo was despised by many yet many were forced to worship him like some type of paragon. As the novel progresses, illustrations of male dominance often appear throughout each chapter. The Mirabal sisters: Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa and Dede each demonstrate the ability to overcome stigmas in order to obtain freedom.

Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies shows the lack of fairness in society and the importance of maintaining a strong family bond. Trujillo was not fair between men and women and granting men the rights to do whatever they want. The Mirabal sisters’ revolutionary against president Trujillo and fighting for freedom of the country and its people. In Saudi Arabia women are now granted to drive, but there some other things that men can do but women cannot. The Mirabal family has a strong maintain of a family bond. Minerva is one of the four sisters who is brave and had the courage to stand for others and started the revolution against the president.

Throughout the novel In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez utilizes the characters Patria, Maria Teresa, and Minerva, to display the daily struggles of women in the Dominican Republic who are fighting in a patriarchal and oppressive society against the regime. All that the Mirabal sisters have ever know is a world where they are thought of as inferior to men. Where male authority defines who they are; women trapped in a community where their voices don’t matter and they should be seen and not heard. As perceived in the novel, Alvarez uses figurative language as well as the theme of oppression to describe the fact that Dominican women are sexulized based upon their apperances.

In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, there are many aspects that have an effect on courage. Each of the four Mirabal sisters have their own moments of courage that are unique in different ways. Throughout the novel, the Mirabal sisters’ motivations to become involved in the revolution all emerge from their influential friends family members, and their desire to protect and impress those people. Although Patria’s motivation to have courage and take part in the Revolution involves her family, the main cause of Patria’s collaboration is due to a spiral of events and her strong faith.

The novel In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez and the play Antigone by Sophocles, both include similar characters, situations, and actions that react to the idea of a dangerous growing authority. The characters Dede from the Time of the Butterflies and Ismene from Antigone both strive to stay out of trouble with the government; however Dede’s approach is more effective as she becomes an oracle character by the end of the novel, for she lives to tell the story of the Mirabal sisters. Dede uses her relationship with her sisters, as well as her own family to survive through the dangerous reign of Trujillo. When facing a regime such as Trujillo's regime, the survivors who live to tell their story, like Dede, are crucial to understanding and analyzing important historical moments. These survivors live through real tragedies, so they are primary resources with personal opinions and experiences.

In his collection of short stories, Ficciones, Jorge Luis Borges uses dreams, imagination and fantasy to establish ambiguity in his stories. With the use of juxtaposition and symbols, Borges blends a realm of dreams and imagination into the individual’s everyday worldly experiences. Through these devices, Borges commonly blurs the line between aspects of reality for his characters versus the constructs of his or her mind. By combining the real with the fictitious, Borges incorporates ambiguity into his stories and introduces his readers to new perspectives of world around them.

In this essay I am going to discuss whether or not we can consider Lazarillo de Tormes as a subversive text and the reasons behind why or why not we may believe it to be so. To accomplish this, I will explore the background behind Lazarillo, the different methods and literary devices used to convey dual meaning and give the text an undertone of subversion.

Moreover, Clara appears into Alba’s mind to remind her purpose about her journey. The internal and external conflict helps emphasize their stories and lead it into a revolutionary war. Alba must understand her downfall through the journey before enlightening

Molina chooses to escape the men’s shared harsh reality through stories and fantasies, and Valentin through his political vision and his studying, which he keeps up religiously, saying that he has to “keep up with [his] reading schedule, you know that”, as it has apparently become such a routine for him, known by Molina, that he feels unable to miss a day, perhaps worried that this will hinder his much-needed-for escape from reality.

In the book Kiss of the Spider Woman the author Manuel Puig I eventually notice a conviction after reading some of the book and also listening to the classroom discussions. Although I personally could not fully follow and understand the text and what Puig was saying to my full capability I also thought deeper into what was said and involved the two main characters Valentin and Molina. The author writes about two very different people who are put into an Argentine jail together for two different reasons. These main characters are total opposites of each other, Molina is a romantic, a homosexual, and someone who likes to tell a romantic story involving a guy that he was in love with at point who was straight. Valentin is a character who hates the government, says cynical things, and is more of a realist. But throughout their time together in the jail cell they have ended up telling each other their stories, which I think strengthens a bond between them. I do not know one hundred prevent for sure what the author meant by his writing or if he even had anything to feel remorse for but I personally think this was a gateway for him to recognize what he had done or done to him.