Garcia Girls Sofia

Sofía attempts to take hold of her life by being sexuality active. In How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Sofía is said to be the one who has “non-stop boyfriends”, and is always the one that the others go to for advice on men. This may come as a surprise considering she is the youngest. This is very much against her parents’ beliefs. They want their daughters to stay pure and celibate. After Carlos finds love letters exchanged between Sofía and her boyfriend, Sofía runs away to be with the man of her dreams. This causes Sofía’s relationship with her father to significantly weaken. Sofía engages in premarital sex and becomes pregnant with a child.

Likewise, another factor that assists in Trujillo’s persistent control of the Dominican Republic is his abuse of power. Rules are restrictions and too many rules lead to the entrapment of citizens. Julia Alvarez specifically utilizes the word “weakness” to portray the character trait that the majority of the citizens possess. In the word “weakness,” one thinks about not-strong and lack of courage. In essence, no one has the courage to stand up to Trujillo. For example, we see the common trait through the quote, “People who opened their big mouths didn’t live very long.”

Patria is exposed to the truth that Trujillo was not the god-like entity she perceived him to be. In Patria’s mind there is no separation between god and Trujillo; they are one. Patria is finally coming face to face with the problems within the Dominican Republic. This revelation foreshadows how Patria will become involved with the regime and what part she might play.

In the novel, Marta who got pregnant by rap did not want her child. When Cande and Chayo offered to take the child; Marta agreed that it would be a good idea. At this point in time, Chayo got pregnant and decided to not take Marta's child. Marta became very angry so she went to Remedios, but she said she could not help her. Due to the fact that Remedios could not help her she searched for el brujo. In this case, "Marta had gone to el brujo and placed a curse on him" (Benítez 110). She was extremely angry at

Alvarez gives When Sofia was with Manuel her mother sent her to Dominican Republic as a punishment for finding a bag of marijuana behind a bureau. Smoking was just one of the ways Sofia tested what was expected of her. Sofia also was able to find her sexual independence in America. At one point in her life, she was never without a boyfriend. She was brave and was her own person throughout most of the novel , but as soon as she was with a man that expected certain things from her and in a place where society agreed with those demands everything changed. Geological setting did not only affect Sofia’s beliefs in a patriarchal culture. The girls noticed a difference in the way their cousin Mundin treated them. “When he’s in the States, he’s one of us, our buddy. But back on the Island, he struts and turns macho; needling us with unfair advantage being male here gives him.” (127)

to run away from the Dominican Republic. She begs "Tell me, Sinita, maybe it will help" (Pg. 15).

The Mirabal sisters are all considered heroines for their work against Trujillo. Three of them

Feminism through In the Time of the Butterflies In the past, women had less power than men for thousands of years. In other words, men played an essential gender role and controlled people all around the world. Obviously, most leaders were males, and there were more male bosses than female`s in

Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor allows people to take books that they normally wouldn’t think to analyze in a certain way and opens a whole new spectrum on literature. In the TIme of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez connects with the idea and principles

She is a person that took every day as it came to her and did what was necessary in order for her to survive. There was no shame in her trying to obtain happiness by keeping her cousin as a lover, nor killing an unborn child to keep herself from being punished. She is attempting to open the eyes of a naive priest who sees nothing but what he has learned from books.

One thing the Gangster forgot to tell Beli is that he was married and the wife was Trujillo blood. Since Beli was so excited about the pregnancy, she was telling everyone about it and soon the news got to the palace and the Gangster wife was furious.

Sofia's defiance of her father's overprotective nature. Sofia was sent to the Dominican Republic as a punishment for using marijuana, though she ended up getting into more trouble by spending time without a chaperone with her illegitimate cousin, Manuel.

In addition, Trujillo was friends with the head of the armed forces, and friends with his wife’s lover. One day Trujillo told the general about his wife having an affair with another man, and Trujillo became the head of the armed forces soon after the general shot his wife and her lover. (17). Even though the sisters didn’t want to believe it the accusations against their president, but began to realize how true they were. Over time the sisters met others that didn’t agree with their president’s ways, and that is how the Mirabel sisters came to join the Virgilio Morales.

Isabella Czech FSP Dr. Ortiz- Villarelle November 5, 2015 Rafael Trujillo, a Dominican dictator, developed a harsh reputation as being one of the most violent and domineering leaders of South America in his thirty-one years of power. In The Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez provides insight into the effects of Trujillo’s infamy by

Julia Alvarez also uses language to show how the four Garcia girls adjust to living in a new, and to them alien, culture. The protagonist in this novel is the family Garcia de la Torre, a wealthy, aristocratic family from the Santo Domingo, who can trace their genealogy back to the Spanish