Event

The Praying Mantis

Adela, Juan's fiance and youngest sister in the house, has invited him home to meet the family. For Adela the lusty but naive Juan is her passport to freedom from her family's isolation, to the world beyond. Desperate for even a brief happiness to hold onto for the rest of her life, Adela asks Juan to rob his bank so they can escape the town and travel--she envisions one exotic travel poster after the other. Adela's two older sisters, Lina and Llalla, are now subjects of scandal because each has supposedly murdered her suitor in self defense. They are in mourning, but they are not above trying to seduce Juan for themselves. The last sister is heard only through a massive door. The sisters revile Teresa, calling her a deformed monster, an insect, a praying mantis, maneater, and (supposedly) the real killer of their lovers. Aparicio, the father, sees Teresa as a "saint" whose holy birth killed his unworthy wife. Juan, caught up in the midst of all these jarring explanations, hears moans and screams from behind Teresa's elaborately carved door. The contradictions naturally disturb and intrigue him; he's drawn to the one sister who hasn't tried to entrap him.