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Symbols
Carla’s eraser, which is shaped like the Dominican Republic, symbolizes the erosion of Anita’s pride in her country. The eraser came into Anita and Carla’s life the year before the novel begins, when Carla won a state-sponsored poetry contest by writing an adulatory poem about the country’s leader, El Jefe. Her prize was this eraser, and Anita and Carla both treasure it. Because they’ve always been taught to admire El Jefe and believe that their country is great, they do not question the contest or the prize (which are both propagandistic manipulation of young minds)—instead, they’re proud that Carla is so talented and patriotic.
However, after Carla’s father crosses El Jefe and she and her family are forced to flee the country in a hurry, Carla leaves her eraser behind, symbolizing her loss of faith in her country. Anita finds the eraser in her bed (an indication that politics are much closer to her personal life than she once suspected) and begins using it to erase words from her diary. She has to erase her diary regularly because she has come to understand that El Jefe is a dictator and her family is under threat from his tyrannical regime; if she wrote anything controversial and the secret police seized the diary, she could get her whole family killed. As she erases her truest thoughts in order to keep her family safe, the eraser begins to lose its shape. Likewise, Anita is losing her faith in her country and starting to understand how evil the government is.
The Eraser Quotes in Before We Were Free
The Before We Were Free quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Eraser. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter Four
Quotes
Sam tells me about this invention in the United States called invisible ink that lets you write stuff down so that no one can read it until the page is soaked in a chemical that makes all the letters reappear.
I wish I had a bottle of that kind of ink for writing in my diary because the truth is I feel kind of sad writing in pencil, always prepared to erase. But Sammy says that ink is probably not sold anywhere in the country, even at Wimpy’s.
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We are free! I want to cry out. But thinking about how the SIM raided our property, how Tío Toni had to disappear, how I have to erase everything in my diary, I know that Oscar is telling the truth. We’re not free—we’re trapped—the Garcías got away just in time! I feel the same panic as when the SIM came storming through our house.
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“One last big favor to ask you, mi amor. No more writing in your diary for the time being.
“That’s so unfair!” Mami gave me the diary for Christmas. Telling me not to write in it is like taking away my only present.
“I know it is, Anita.” Mami wipes away my tears with her thumbs. “For now, we have to be like the little worm in the cocoon of the butterfly. All closed up and secret until the day...” She spreads her arms as if they were wings.
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Get the entire Before We Were Free LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Eraser Symbol Timeline in Before We Were Free
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Eraser appears in Before We Were Free. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter One
...to help Carla pack her things—even the things that usually remain at school, like Carla’s eraser in the shape of the Dominican Republic. Anita can’t figure out why she doesn’t have...
(full context)
...the supplies back up and vows not to use them. But later, Anita discovers the eraser in the shape of the Dominican Republic hiding in her sheets.
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Chapter Four
...that she writes in pencil in her diary so she can erase everything with Carla’s eraser if the SIM come. She’s also worried about Mami, who’s not usually nosy but under...
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Chapter Eight
...off since the poems are all about El Jefe. Anita remembers that Carla won her eraser in the shape of the Dominican Republic in a poetry contest. She wonders if Carla’s...
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Chapter Nine
...army, they won’t be free. Anita barely sleeps. She dreams of the García girls, the eraser in the shape of the Dominican Republic, and blood. Eventually, Chucha shakes Anita awake. Moments...
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