Résumé
Résumé de Rita
Go deeper: the whole of Rita
About 2 h 30 min to read.À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who like spirited heroines, wartime adventure with a light touch, warm friendships across languages, and a romance that grows out of shared work. Fans of lively letters and a talking parrot will feel at home.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
A girl of eighteen swears she will die before she enters a convent, and then she runs away with her maid and a parrot. Rita is set in Cuba in the spring of 1898, just after the sinking of the Maine. Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards gives us Margarita Montfort, a spoiled and dramatic girl with an American father, a Cuban heart and a stepmother she cannot stand. The story opens in letters and then moves out into the hills, with a guerrilla camp, a house under attack and a night ride with bullets in the air.
Dans ce résumé
- 1Letters from a house at warFree
- 2The runaway and her loyal helpers
- 3A starving family and a ringing bell
- 4Life in the mountain camp
- 5The pacificos and the secret in the woods
- 6Manuela's trick and a night of fire
- 7Rita chooses her path
Point clé 1 sur 7
Letters from a house at war
The book begins in Havana on April 30, 1898. Rita's stepmother writes to her brother-in-law in the United States. She says Rita is a fanatic who plays rebel songs at open windows, and she plans to send the girl to the convent of the White Sisters.
Rita writes to the same uncle in a very different voice. She swears she will never go alive to that place of death and says she has daggers and poison. The humour comes from the gap between her tragic words and her love of her own suffering.
Her parrot Chiquito, taught to cry long live free Cuba, is dear to her. Around her stand the gentle old banker Don Miguel, her faithful maid Manuela and the servant Pasquale.
That’s 1 of 7 key points.
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Go deeper: the whole of Rita
About 2 h 30 min to read.Questions about Rita
What is Rita by Laura E. Richards about?
It follows Rita Montfort, a spirited girl in Havana in 1898, who escapes her stepmother's plan to send her to a convent and joins the Cuban army camp in the hills, where she begins to learn real courage.
Who is Captain Jack Delmonte?
He is a cheerful guerrilla leader with a Cuban father and an American mother. Rita first thinks him a coward, then learns he is the famous captain she admires, and he carries her away on a night ride.
What is the parrot Chiquito's role in Rita?
Chiquito is Rita's old gray parrot, taught to shout long live free Cuba. His cry at the ruined chapel wins the soldiers' welcome and adds humour to the camp scenes.
Is Rita easy to read?
Yes, in the sense that matters: short chapters, brisk dialogue and a comic touch carry the story along. The opening letters give the voices of Rita, her stepmother and Don Miguel, and the plot soon moves into action.