Examen de Dos Palabras
How did Belisa make her living?
Selling words
What did Belisa write the speech on?
Sheet of paper
How did Belisa describe the Colonel's voice?
Soft and well-modulated as a professor's
How many successful weeks of campaigning did the Colonel campaign for, when his obsession with the two words Belisa gave him was introduced into the story?
12
How much money did Belisa give to the priest that taught her to read and write?
20 pesos
How many times did Belisa read the speech aloud?
3
With how much money did Belisa buy a dictionary?
3 pesos
How much did Belisa charge for delivering verses from memory?
5 centavos
How much did Belisa charge for a secret word to drive away melancholy?
50 centavos
How much did Belisa charge for the improvements of the quality of dreams?
7 centavos
How much did Belisa charge for her to write love letters?
9 centavos
What did the newspaper's sports page that Belisa discovered writing on have on it; what was it talking about?
A boxing match
What was radiating from Belisa's hips according to the Colonel?
A fiery heat
To anyone who paid Belisa 50 centavos in trade, what did she give them?
A gift of a secret word to drive away melancholy
Who trained Belisa to read and write?
A priest
Where was Belisa taken after she was kidnapped for the first time?
A rebel camp in the hills
What did El Mulato offer to Belisa to make her feel better/to regain her strength
A sip of liquor laced with gunpowder (from his canteen)
How long did Belisa take to write the speech?
About a day ("all night and a good part of the following day")
How did Belisa discover writing?
Accidentally
It seemed to Belisa that selling words would be what?
An honorable alternative
When was Belisa first captured by El Mulato and the Colonel's men?
August morning
Why did Belisa survive the struggle?
Because she was stubborn (so much so that she survived to cross through that hell)
What is the name of the main character?
Belisa Crepusculario
How did Belisa carry stories from town to town?
By memory
How did the Colonel become more and more obsessive with the two words Belisa gives him?
By repeating them
Where does "Dos Palabras" take place; what country?
Chile
What was the Colonel's skin like according to Belisa?
Dark
When were the Presidential elections to take place?
December
When did Belisa bury 4 younger brothers and sisters by herself?
During one interminable drought
Who is the Colonel's faithful aide?
El Mulato
Who was a giant know throughout the land for the speed of his knife and his loyalty to his chief?
El Mulato
Who's approval was this: "If after they've heard it three times, the boys are still standing there with their mouths hanging open, it must mean that the thing's damn good..."
El Mulato
(True or False) Belisa delays arriving at her destination because she always stops to help the people that she encounters on the road.
False
(True or False) Only one of Belisa's siblings went with her on her trip.
False
(True or False) To understand more, Belisa buys a dictionary that she kept forever.
False
Both the Colonel and El Mulato spent their lives doing what?
Fighting in the Civil War
When the Colonel finished his speech, what did his soldiers do?
Fire their pistols into the air and set off firecrackers
Why did El Mulato get mad at Belisa; didn't like her anymore?
He thought Belisa had cursed at him; he believed them to be an "irrecoverable curse" (the flame of his desire was extinguished)
Why did El Mulato go looking for Belisa?
He was saddened by watching his chief (the Colonel) decline like a man with a death sentence on his head?
Why did the Colonel want to be president?
He was truly troubled when he saw people look at him with terror (for years he had been sleeping in the open air, bitten by mosquitoes, eating iguales and snake soup... these weren't it)
Who gave Belisa her name?
Herself
Who saved Belisa's life?
Herself
What prevented El Mulato from cutting Belisa to shreds with his whip?
His fear of her tongue
Where did El Mulato find Belisa?
In a village in the far south
Where did Belisa grow up?
In an inhospitable land
Who wrote "Dos Palabras"?
Isabel Allende
Why did Belisa throw her dictionary into the sea?
It was not her intention to defraud her customers with packaged words
What was the literature that Belisa discovered writing on?
Newspaper
Did Belisa stop to help those struggling on the journey they were making like herself?
No
Had Belisa ever seen El Mulato before he kid napped her for the first time?
No
Did Belisa have an occupation (or virtue) before the age of 12?
No (she did not have an occupation)
Who went with Belisa on her trip away from her small town?
No one (she was by herself)
Can the Colonel read?
No; he's illiterate
How many words were exchanged in all the trip that El Mulato and Belisa took together?
None
How much interest did the Colonel have in Belisa's secret words in the beginning?
None at all
Where did the Colonel speak in a town?
On a platform in the middle of the plaza
How much did Belisa charge the Colonel for writing the speech?
One peso
What had El Mulato's desire for Belisa turn into?
Rage
What did the rebels throw Belisa like across the ramp of El Mulato's mount?
Sea bag
What months did the Colonel say his speech?
September, October, and November
Why did Belisa not dare refuse such an assignment (none like this had she ever accepted before) to write a speech for the Colonel?
She feared the Colonel would burst into tears and El Mulato would shoot her between the eyes
What was "more to it than that" when referring to the fact why she accepted the assignment of writing a speech for the Colonel?
She felt a "throbbing warmth beneath her skin"
Why didn't Belisa stop to help those struggling on the journey they were making like herself?
She had no strength to waste in acts of compassion
How did Belisa conclude that "Belisa" would be her name?
She searched until she found the poetry of "beauty" and "twilight" (and cloaked herself in it)
Why did Belisa give herself her own name?
She was born into a family so poor they did not even have names to give their children ("not because she had ben baptized with that name or given it by her mother")
What was Belisa doing when El Mulato found him?
Sitting under her tent reciting her rosary of news
What direction was Belisa heading when she left her small town?
South (following the mirage of water)
What else (other than taking a sip of liquor) did Belisa do when she came to and prior to going to the Colonel?
Splash water on her face
What was the newspaper that Belisa discovered writing turned to?
Sports page
What was Belisa's breath like according to the Colonel?
Sweetmint
El Mulato and the Colonel's men handed out what and painted his name on all what with what?
Sweets, the walls in gold frost
How did El Mulato suggest that the Colonel becomes president?
Take it by force
Who was the favorite candidate in the presidential election?
The Colonel
Who was the most feared man in all the land?
The Colonel
Why was Belisa kidnapped the first time?
The Colonel needed her services
How did Belisa describe the Colonel's eyes?
The eyes of a ferocious puma
What did Belisa smell like according to the Colonel?
The scent of a mountain cat (el olor de animal montuno)
What was the source of the Colonel's "befuddlement"?
The two secret words Belisa gave him (that were buried like two daggers in his gut)
What was the commoners'/people's reaction to the clarity of the Colonel's proposals and the poetic lucidity of his argument?
They were dazzled
What did the Colonel have to do to inflame his senses with the memory of Belisa's feral scent, her fiery heat, the whisper of her hair, and her sweetmint breath (el aliento de yerbabuena) in his ear?
Thinks of the two words (Belisa gave him)
What did Belisa do with her dictionary after reading and memorizing all the words in it?
Threw it into the sea
What did the Colonel want?
To be president
What does the Colonel ask of Belisa to do for him?
To sell him the words for a speech
(True or False) A priest taught Belisa how to read and write.
True
(True or False) Belisa discovered writing by chance.
True
(True or False) Belisa gave herself her own name.
True
(True or False) Belisa never have had a job (work) before she left her town.
True
(True or False) Belisa's profession/occupation es a seller of words.
True
(True or False) The place where Belisa lived when she was little had a climate with much change.
True
How innocent is Belisa?
Virgin
What does the Colonel know?
War (he says)
When did Belisa decide to leave her little town she grew up in?
When she realized (after burying her siblings) that her turn to die was next
How did the Colonel want to to become president?
Win the popular election
Had Belisa been waiting for El Mulato when he arrived to get her the second time?
Yes
Was Belisa with a client when she was kid napped for the first time by El Mulato and the Colonel's men?
Yes
Every time Belisa gave someone a secret word, was it unique to the individual?
Yes (never to be used in this universe or the Beyond)
Was there dramatic weather/climate change where Belisa grew up?
Yes (sometimes great floods, sometimes long droughts)
Did El Mulato desire Belisa, and did he ever touch her?
Yes, no
(True or False) The first time that Belisa sees writing is on a poster (on a wall) that announces a boxing match.
False
How much did Belisa charge for her to invent insults for irreconciliable enemies?
12 centavos
