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The two novels The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz and In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez intersect in a few interesting ways.  Both are stories about families from the Dominican Republic and how the experience of the “EI Jefe” regime impacted them and caused a loss of family wealth and status.  The major contrast is the difference in parenting that significantly influenced the outcome of their lives. Beli dropped out of school at a young age, didn’t know how to raise Lola because she never grew up with her parents, and therefore she didn’t know the right way to raise a child. The Mirabels raised their four daughters with family bonding of love and care, and provided them with good education so their lives turn out much more stable. 

Both novels discussed how these two families got in trouble with Trujillo.  They both wrote long and elaborate explanations and apologies in order to plead with government officers and police to find the disappearance of their family member. However, government workers do not make decisions; they only follow orders from above.  As per Trujillo: Little Caesar of the Caribbean: “ever-dreaded starvation-have been the fate of thousands of people whose only crime was reckless criticism of the ruling clique” (99).

In the story of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Beli’s father was a doctor and her mother was a nurse.  Her father Abelard got in trouble and was taken away for saying bad things about Trujillo and then refusing to attend Trujillo’s party, “Among the prisoners of the Trujillato few tortures were more feared.  Since it neither killed you nor left you alive.  Abelard survived it but was never the same. Turned him into a vegetable. The proud flame of his intellect extinguished” (Diaz 251). Beli’s mother, after her father’s disappearance, was killed by a suspicious car accident. It was “odd is it that she was accepted to medical school in France three days before she ‘killed herself’ and from all evidence couldn’t wait to be gone from Santo Domingo” (Diaz 249). After both of her parents were gone, Beli’s two other sisters also disappeared.  These terrifying experiences influenced the rest of Beli’s life.

In the Time of the Butterflies, The family trouble started when Minerva was dancing with Trujillo at his party: “He yanks my wrist, thrusting his pelvis at me in a vulgar way, and I can see my hand in an endless slow motion rise-a mind all its own-and come down on the astonished, made-up face” (Alvarez 100). Minerva’s family told her that she should think twice before rejecting Trujillo; she did it anyway. Minerva also got into trouble by tell Trujillo about Virgilio Morales that her parents didn’t want her to talk about him in the public. But Minerva was not a person can keep her month quiet: “I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when I had something to say” (Alvarez 16). Very soon her father was sent down to the capital for questioning and disappeared for a while. Minerva had to beg Trujillo to get her father released.  By the time he was released “He is such a pitiful sight. His face is gaunt, his voice shaky… Papa suffered a heart attack in his cell the Wednesday after he was arrested, but it wasn’t till the following Monday that he was allowed to see a doctor” (Alvarez 100). Not too long after that, he passed away and income stopped coming in.

The four sisters of Mirabal family (Dede, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa) grew up in a stable family.  Both parents were still living and the family business was doing very well.  The girls were able to enjoy the family love and attention that their parents gave them, and they were able to attend school to get an education. The sisters had much interaction with their parents: “I was his (father) treasure, he’d say, patting his lap, as if I were a girl in a jumper instead of a woman of twenty-three in the slacks he objected to my wearing in public” (Alvarez 84). Before Virgilio Morales (Lio) left, he asked Dede to pass a letter to Minerva. Dede went home, but did not give Minerva the letter.  She quietly read the letter in her bedroom, and when she found out Lio was inviting her sister to take asylum with him, she destroyed the letter “What a risk to ask her sister to take!” (Alvarez 83). She didn’t want Minerva exposed to the danger.  When Trujillo invited Mirabal family to his party with a hand written note requesting for Minerva Mirabal, Minerva’s mother was worry. “Mama didn’t want me to go either.  The note at the end scared her. This wasn’t an official do but something personal” (Alvarez 90).  As we can clearly see the Maribels had very good family bond and interaction, especially when facing difficult times, they were still hand to hand together.

In comparison, Beli’s early family life was different and much more difficult.  She had been an orphan since she was only a few months old.  Beli “was not as easy to place…She was a newborn, after all, and, well, the scuttlebutt around the family has it that as she was so dark no one on Abelard’s side of the family would take her” (Diaz 252) nor “no one outside the family wanted the darkchild to live” (Diaz 252). She was finally sold to a family. Beli naturally liked to study and often skipped work to attend classes.  Her foster parents flipped when the girl kept skipping work to attend classes. Her father was so mad that he poured hot oil on her naked back that burned and nearly killed her. Because Beli grew up in an abusive environment, she could not and did not know what a healthy relationship is. “All types of child abuse and neglect leave lasting scars.  Some of these scars might be physical, but emotional scarring has long lasting effect throughout life, damaging a child’s sense of self ability to have healthy relationship, and ability to function at home…” (“Child Abuse and Neglect”). Beli was severely affected by the abusive conditions and was never able to have healthy relationships.  Beli’s first boy friend Jack Pujols did not respect her and treated her poorly.  He told her she was beautiful, but every time when they got together, he was afraid of other people seeing them.  He always rushed Beli to get dressed before people see them, “Afterward she tried to embrace him, to touch his silken hair, but he shook off her caresses” (Diaz 100).  Her second relationship with Gangster was different, but with the same result. He bought her many gifts and treated her to plays. Beli saw this as Gangster’s love for her “you’d be surprised how even a hardheaded girl like Beli, committed as she was to an idealized notion of what love was” (Diaz 125).

Beli didn’t know how to raise Lola normally like other families.  Beli didn’t grow up with her parents, so was Lola.  Since birth, Lola’s father was never around her. Even though Beli raised her, Lola was the one taking care of her brother and doing the house work “I stayed at home and made sure Oscar was fed and that everything ran right while she was at work. I raised him” (Diaz 56).  Lola didn’t have a good relationship with her mom, in page 56, Lola comments that “you don’t know what it’s like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her like, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams” and in page 58 she also said “I was my mother’s daughter. Her hold on me stronger than love”.  Lola grew up with a similar life pattern that Beli had experienced.  Lola eventually ran away with Aldo and lived with him. However, the relationship soon fell apart “I knew he was getting unhappy with us but I didn’t know exactly how bad it was until one night” (Diaz 66).

The Mirabel family also suffered greatly under the hands of Trujilllo.  The father died and they lost their business and family wealth.  However, Mirabel sisters did not lose their wills.  Instead, they bonded even more strongly under adverse situations.  They vividly remembered their time with their father:

“Papa was a hero!” Dede fumed. “He was trying to keep you out of trouble!”  Minerva nodded. “That’s right. His advice was always, don’t annoy the bees, don’t annoy the bees. It’s men like him and Jaimito (Dede’s husband) and other scared fulanitos who have kept the devil in power all these years (Alvarez 179).

Dede looked up to her father as a hero who protected his family and refused to give in to evil. Minerva felt the same way but was able to broaden her perspective and embrace the suffering of all Dominicans as her suffering. She believed that the only way to protect her family was to protect all Dominicans’ families, and that to protect everyone was to start a revolution to take down Trujillo. The strong family bond enabled the sisters to engage in constructive conflicting view points without personal attacks. This led to a broader understanding and closer relationship. The sisters agreed that their children should not only have the same love and care environment that they enjoyed, but to have the opportunity to seek out a better life. Freedom could only exist without the presence of Trujillo.

            Beli was never able to develop the same mental attitude and strong will as the Mirabel sisters. Even though La Inca (Abelard’s cousin) found her, tried hard to give her an education, and wanted to bring her back up to the class were she belonged, La Inca’s conditional love made it difficult for Beli to adjust.  La Inca kept reminding Beli about the family Beli had never known “Remember, your father was a doctor, a doctor, and your mother was a nurse, a nurse” (Diaz 81). 

It was too much for Beli to handle and understand, since she had been living without her family since childhood. “If you’ve been told over and over again as a child that you are stupid or no good, it is very difficult to overcome these core feelings” (“Child Abuse and Neglect”). If La Inca had given all the love and care to Beli without any conditions and expectations, Beli might have had better chance to undergo transformation. The problem was, La Inca might not have known what she did was wrong. She was not able to understand Beli’s feelings because La Inca was not “black” and she never grew up in the under class neighborhood where people look down and blatantly discriminate against.  This pushed Beli toward the other end of society that she would have less struggle with.

Nobody showed Beli what “love” really was. Since she never experienced it she would not know if people treated her respectfully.  She also didn’t know how to give love and care to other people, even to her own children.  This was not because Beli didn’t care and didn’t want Lola to be better; it was because Beli never learned “how”.  “Even in those that look happy from the outside-children are at a much greater risk in certain situations… Lack of parenting skills… parents who where themselves victims of child abuse may only know how to raise their children the way they were raised” (“Child Abuse and Neglect”). As a result, Lola struggled with the same relationship problem that Beli did.  They both didn’t have much respect from men, and all they knew was having physical relationship with men. To them, the definition of love was men buying things for them, taking them out, and having children with them. 

Even though both novels intersected about Trujillo’s dictatorship causing both families to lose their wealth, their difference in life experience led to two different conclusions. The four sisters from the Mirabal family showed great love because of their strong family relationship. Because of their strong love for their family and children, they had the courage to fight against dictatorship so that everybody could have a better life.  Beli family’s, on the other hand, experienced a more egocentric love. This narrower minded love led to their attitude of caring more about themselves than for other people. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work Cited

Diaz, Junot. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. New York: riverhead, 2007. Print.

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Plume, 1995. Print.

Ornes, German E. Trujillo:Little Caesar of the Caribbean. New York: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1958. Print.

“Child Abuse and Neglect.” Helpguide.org. Helpguide, n.d. Web. 16 June 2010

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