Bad Influence Themes

Bad Influence Themes

Fantasy vs. Reality

Rita comes to the island with what she sees as a realist perspective. Her smart-aleck, know-it-all attitude is authoritatively adolescent and grounded in her American upbringing, as evidenced upon her arrival when she reports, "My friends from Central High would have died laughing if they had seen the women with their fans going back and forth across their shiny faces fighting over . . . who was going to sit next to whom." She makes light of her grandparents' spiritual work by calling it Ghostbusting and asserts that her grandfather must be senile because he comforts his troubled rooster. However, as she is drawn into the scenario between Angela, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend, Rita is affected by her grandparents' wisdom and acumen in determining the source of strife in the family. Papá eventually teaches Rita some of his skills of perception, and she comes to call herself a...
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