Question #6

Alvarez takes the reader far beyond just the legend of the sisters.  Throughout the novel she shows how each one of the sisters grows more mature, and it tells the reader about their lives instead of only their part of the revolution.  By telling the sisters' stories, she makes them seem more like the human beings they are rather than portraying them as revolutionary heroes.  During the novel Alvarez takes a lot of time to make sure the reader sees the maturation of each of the sisters in order portray them as normal girls who grew up in an oppressed country with a normal family.  I think that Alvarez's purpose in telling their story is to let the reader know how her native country was rid of a tyrannical regime that kept them oppressed for years because she really appreciates the sisters' stories.  She also seems to want everyone to know the story because it is inspirational to the world and not just in the Dominican Republic.  The morals included in the novel can are universal and can give people hope who are oppressed today.  It is possible that she wants people to know their story because they are deserving of being remembered as who they were instead of just what they did.  The stories are examples of what can be accomplished by regular people with big ambitions.  One of the main morals in my opinion is, "if there's a will there's a way," because from the family they grew up in nobody would think that anybody part of it would be major contributors to the revolution, and especially since they were three girls.  They pretty much defied the odds due to the fact that they were women in an oppressed country, who also didn't all have a full education.  All they had was their determination and selflessness which would eventually lead to their triumph and in the end, death.  Instead of the girls being remembered as legends, Alvarez wants them to be remembered as the people they were and the difficulties they had to overcome.