In the Time of the Butterflies

Why did many Dominicans hang and look up to Trujillo's picture in their homes sometimes without knowing who he was and what he stood for?

about the story In the Time of Butterflies

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Trujillo makes himself out to be a hero and actually makes it a requirement to have pictures of him in every Dominican household. A lot of people consider heroes to be good things, but do not consider the ugly side that many good things often have,

"‘Bad things?’ I interrupted. ‘Trujillo was doing bad things?’ It was as if I had just heard Jesus had slapped a baby or Our Blessed Mother had not conceived Him the immaculate conception way. ‘That can’t be true,’ I said, but in my heart, I felt a china-crack of doubt…At home, Trujillo hung on the wall by the picture of Our Lord Jesus with a whole flock of the cutest lambs.”

Trujillo, like most dictators, was not very nice. He declared his country a one party state and many of his opponents disappeared. He was considered a nationalist by many (kind of like Castro) and developed a mythology about himself that many people believed or still believe to this day.

Source(s)

http://novelinks.org/pmwiki.php?n=Novels.InTheTimeOfTheButterflies