The poem “Exile” by Julia Alvarez dramatizes the conflicts of a young girl's family's escape from an oppressive dictatorship in the Dominican Republic to the freedom of the United States. The setting of this poem begins in the city of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, renamed in honor of the brutal dictator Rafael Trujillo; however, it eventually changes to New York when the family manages to escape. The speaker is a young girl who is unsophisticated towards the world; therefore, he does not know what is happening to his family, although he suspects that something is wrong. The author uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem to compare "swimming" and escaping the Dominican Republic. Through the phrase “A hasty bag, allowing one toy a piece” (13) one gets the feeling that the family was in exile or forced to leave their country. The title of the poem “Exile” informs the reader that there was no choice for the family other than to leave the Dominican Republic, but some words and phrases reiterate the title. In this poem, the speaker expresses her feelings about fleeing her home and how isolated she feels in the United States. The poet uses four-line stanzas or quatrains, and this is a narrative poem because the speaker is telling a story. The speaker seems a little strange in a way because he doesn't know what's going on; “Worried whispers” (6) is an alliteration and also symbolizes the speaker's anxiety. Both his uncle and his father do not tell the truth to the speaker, rather they "soften" it. This is similar to Emily Dickinson's poem “Tell the whole truth but tell it obliquely” because children might be scared if they learned the truth right away. In the line “What a wonderful occasion he will enjoy learning to swim” (11) the poet once again underlines how adults lie to children so that they do not harm them. The speaker feels like her parents are lying to her; however, he trusts them simply because he believes that what adults do cannot go wrong. Additionally, “A week at the beach so dad can rest” (15) sounds as if the speaker's father needs to leave the Dominican Republic because he poses some sort of danger. The speaker struggles throughout the poem because he is leaving everything he has known behind, and is going to a new land that he knows nothing about.