Before Night Falls Summary

The story that I chose is From Before Night Falls, Mariel. The author’s name is Reinaldo Arenas, a Cuban writer that escaped from Castro’s regimen. The story took place in Cuba around the beginning of April 1980. The main character of the story is the writer, Reinaldo Arenas, he told the story of how he tried to escape from Cuba in order to come to the United States and have freedom. In order to achieve his goal, he had to change his last name because he was in the list of the people that were not authorized to leave the country. The main conflict of the story is that people in Cuba tried to go to the Peruvian Embassy asking for political asylum but Fidel Castro tried to pressure the ambassador by taking away the Cuban guards from the embassy to give end and kick everyone outside. During the first events of the story he was accompanied by his friend Lazaro who stayed with him for the same reasons. But later on in the story they separated because Lazaro believed that staying in the Peruvian embassy thinks that he will get a political asylum. Reinaldo on the other hand didn’t stay in the embassy because he thought that it was going to be a trap. Later in the story, Lazaro came in bad conditions, Reinaldo didn’t recognize his friend. Lazaro tells the main character that he came back to wait for his exist permit. The day it came, …show more content…
Only people with bad reputation or records such as criminals and homosexuals were allowed to leave the Island. In 1980 a big group of homosexuals were allowed to leave the island, people pretended to be gay in order to get out of the island in search of freedom. The only way that the main character, Reinaldo Arenas, was able to leave was because in his ID he had criminal records for disturbing the public and because he also said that he was