How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
[...] we had devised as sophisticated and complicated a code and underground system as Papi had when he and his group plotted against the dictator. [...] The third, on-duty daughter would get the third call, in which the first question would be, "Where are your sisters?" At the library studying or in so-and-so's room getting tutored on her calculus. (2.1.10)
So if the García Girls are the revolutionaries in this scenario, does that make Papi a dictator? Does anyone else think this is a little ironic?
Quote #5
It's possible that Mami had her own little revolution brewing, and she didn't want to blow the whistle on her girls and thus call attention to herself. [...]
Recently, she had begun spreading her wings, taking adult courses in real estate and international economics and business management, dreaming of a bigger-than-family-size life for herself. She still did lip service to the old ways, while herself nibbling away at forbidden fruit. (2.1.43-44)
When is taking a business class a revolutionary act? When your family expects your only job to be staying home and taking care of the kids. But do you think Mami considers herself to be a feminist?
Quote #6
But tonight, as we've agreed, we're staging a coup on the same Avenida where a decade ago the dictator was cornered and wounded on his way to a tryst with his mistress. It was a plot our father helped devise but did not carry through, since by then we had fled to the States. (2.1.122)
Oh, BTW, Trujillo was shot. Yeah, things didn't work out so well for him. We wonder if Carlos García feels redeemed that he helped to come up with the plan that eventually worked to kill Trujillo. He never mentions it in the novel, or seems to take much pride in it. Why not? Is it because, even with Trujillo dead, the Dominican Republic still had a few years of dictatorship ahead of it?