In developing her own fears of Trujillo through Maria Teresa, Alvarez discretely coaxes readers to feel the same way she does with simple devices like rhetorical questions, repetition, and personification. Rhetorical questions subtly influence audiences by simply getting them to think, while repetition promotes clarity and encourages the acceptance of an idea by firmly establishing said idea in the minds of the audience. In addition to using personification to give more life to the text, Julia Alvarez uses it alongside references to sound (police sirens) to appeal to readers’ senses to trigger their emotions, once again rendering readers vulnerable and more receptive to logic. In addition, by mentioning God to indicate the sort of qualities
