Although the revolution does attempt to create a nation-family, it cannot do so without scarring the survivors. Those who survive have to face the complex negotiation of remembering and forgetting, to create a history that they can live with. This struggle of bearing the burden of memories is exemplified in the second oldest sister Dedé who is the only Mirabal sister to survive. She is the keeper of memories, the guardian of the legacy of the Mirabal sisters and Alvarez’s sensitive writing ensures that the reader realises just how difficult this duty is for Dedé. Dedé has to balance the past against the present and the future, that is, she has to look after the museum dedicated to her sisters’ memory as well as actively play the mother figure
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Dedé’s narrative skilfully weaves together the lives of all the sisters and how their political actions (or lack thereof, in Dedé’s case) were a result of the interchange of ideas between them. For example, somewhat like Minerva, Dedé’s political awakening is due to the entrance of Lío in her life and her engagement with him is a parallel for the way she engages with the revolution. In both cases, Dedé is tempted to leave safety and convention behind for a more exciting future, but due to a lack of conviction and fear of swimming against the current, Dedé turns to both Lío and the revolution when it is too late. Her one attempt to leave Jaimito’s domineering presence and join her sisters in their underground political group is aborted by her ambiguous response to the revolution and lack of desire to change the status quo. Yet despite all her fear, her dedication to her sisters remains constant. For example, when Minerva and Mate are arrested, Dedé along with Patria looks after the house and the children. At one point, Dedé even offers herself up as Minerva when she and Minerva encounter Trujillo’s guards on the road. Dedé’s greatest fear is realised when despite her warnings her sisters travel together and are killed in an ambush leaving Dedé behind to look after everyone. As Jaimito tells Dedé, her …show more content…
Their drive towards revolution is based on creating a nation-family which is just and egalitarian. They wanted the Dominican Republic to be nation where gender, class, race and political views would not be the grounds for exploitation and repression but rather for liberation and equality. Although the sisters join in the revolution for various reasons and at various times, their love for family includes the larger idea of the family as a nation. The family is redefined as the nation-family created upon strong foundations of freedom from conventional roles, an empowered female community and an alliance between the religion state, family and individual that is protective and nurturing rather abusive and exploitative. Although this dream of the Mirabal sisters is not realized even after their deaths, their story told by the surviving sister is proof of a valiant struggle fought on multiple grounds against a corrupt brutal dictator that embodied prejudice, patriarchy and bigotry. The Mirabal sisters posit the family as an alternate site of belief and ideological value when the nation symbolised by the government becomes an entity that is unjust, violent and corrupt. The nation-family is the rebuttal to a brutal controlling regime. While the nation-family becomes a reason to struggle for, live
Dedé’s narrative skilfully weaves together the lives of all the sisters and how their political actions (or lack thereof, in Dedé’s case) were a result of the interchange of ideas between them. For example, somewhat like Minerva, Dedé’s political awakening is due to the entrance of Lío in her life and her engagement with him is a parallel for the way she engages with the revolution. In both cases, Dedé is tempted to leave safety and convention behind for a more exciting future, but due to a lack of conviction and fear of swimming against the current, Dedé turns to both Lío and the revolution when it is too late. Her one attempt to leave Jaimito’s domineering presence and join her sisters in their underground political group is aborted by her ambiguous response to the revolution and lack of desire to change the status quo. Yet despite all her fear, her dedication to her sisters remains constant. For example, when Minerva and Mate are arrested, Dedé along with Patria looks after the house and the children. At one point, Dedé even offers herself up as Minerva when she and Minerva encounter Trujillo’s guards on the road. Dedé’s greatest fear is realised when despite her warnings her sisters travel together and are killed in an ambush leaving Dedé behind to look after everyone. As Jaimito tells Dedé, her …show more content…
Their drive towards revolution is based on creating a nation-family which is just and egalitarian. They wanted the Dominican Republic to be nation where gender, class, race and political views would not be the grounds for exploitation and repression but rather for liberation and equality. Although the sisters join in the revolution for various reasons and at various times, their love for family includes the larger idea of the family as a nation. The family is redefined as the nation-family created upon strong foundations of freedom from conventional roles, an empowered female community and an alliance between the religion state, family and individual that is protective and nurturing rather abusive and exploitative. Although this dream of the Mirabal sisters is not realized even after their deaths, their story told by the surviving sister is proof of a valiant struggle fought on multiple grounds against a corrupt brutal dictator that embodied prejudice, patriarchy and bigotry. The Mirabal sisters posit the family as an alternate site of belief and ideological value when the nation symbolised by the government becomes an entity that is unjust, violent and corrupt. The nation-family is the rebuttal to a brutal controlling regime. While the nation-family becomes a reason to struggle for, live