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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Summer of the Mariposas, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Sisterhood, Motherhood, and Family
Magic, Myth, and Deception
Gender Dynamics and Female Solidarity
Kindness, Mercy, and Morality
Ancestral and Cultural Appreciation
Summary
Analysis
The sisters reach Teresita’s house under the hot sun’s glare. An old man (Teresita’s husband) greets them and offers them water from a well. Hesitantly, Odilia takes a sip; it is unspeakably refreshing. The man tells the girls Teresita has been waiting for them. Teresita is very old and masculine, with cataracts that keep her from seeing clearly. She invites the girls to sit, already knowing they need help getting to Abuelita’s house. She shuffles a deck of ancient cards that look similar to Lotería before drawing six and placing them on the table.
The refreshing well from which the Garza sisters drink suggests that their visit to Teresita will provide a respite from their recent troubles. Teresita parallels Tiresias from Homer’s The Odyssey—Tiresias is the blind prophet who Odysseus meets in the underworld who advises the hero on his journey. The goddess Hera transfigured Tiresias into a woman, perhaps accounting for Teresita’s androgynous appearance. Her use of cards similar to Lotería amplifies the sense that the sisters’ journey is subject to chance and fortune.
Themes
Teresita tells the Garza sisters that the road ahead is filled with more danger. They must pay for their transgressions against Cecilia, who has called her evil children to torment them. Odilia tells her sisters—too late—about La Llorona’s warnings to remain pure of heart, and how she did not take them seriously. Teresita tells Odilia to use the ear pendant’s remaining spins wisely, because the worst monster of all “lives among you.” She cannot stop Cecilia’s devils, can only forewarn the sisters that they are coming and advise them on how to defeat “that which dwells in the mystical realm.”
Teresita predicts that the dangers that lie ahead are the direct result of mocking Cecilia. She draws attention to the fact that Odilia kept La Llorona’s warnings from her sisters, which highlights the ways disunity can lead to peril. Even so, the fact that Teresita does not foretell certain doom suggests that they can redeem their bad behavior if they are willing to change. Her assertion that a monster lives among them alludes to Papá, whose abandonment is central to the sense of brokenness the sisters must overcome.
Themes
According to Teresita, the girls will have to face the nagual (a warlock in disguise who can be defeated by a song from their childhood), lechuzas (witch owls that can be bested by prayer and knots), and el chupacabras (a monster with no humanity left). Juanita becomes frustrated by the seer’s fantastical claims, but Teresita’s husband confirms he has seen el chupacabras himself. He claims to have wounded it, firing a bullet through one of its eyes, and he tells the sisters to show it no mercy. Teresita reassures the Garzas that they can save themselves if they stick together. She implies that there are more demons waiting for them at home that have yet to be faced, which worries Odilia.
The prediction that the Garzas will encounter three supernatural beings further parallels the events of Homer’s Odyssey, whose protagonist confronts numerous troublesome creatures on his quest. That Teresita’s husband exhorts the girls to show no mercy to el chupacabras suggests the sisters’ confrontation with that beast in particular will involve a test of nerve and morality.
Themes
