Men In The Time Of The Butterflies Analysis

“When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.” Stated by French poet, Victor Hugo. He is stating that people should have the right to rebel against a dictatorship. When a country is under a dictator, people should speak out and fight for their independence. Some will accept the fate of the dictator and become weakened by it, but some will choose to stand up against it. Speaking out for your independence is demonstrated in the person Minerva Mirabal, from the novel In the Time of the Butterflies. In In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, Minerva Mirabal is shown as a strong woman who is able to stand up to the dictator, Trujillo. Minerva Mirabal is living in the Dominican Republic at

This image illustrates how Trujillo's system truly brunts the lives of Patria, her sisters, and their fellow people. To them, Trujillo is almost godlike. He usually gives them arcane commandments, smites those who contravene his power, and is delimited by wealth. Patria shows her disbelief in how callously God is behaving toward her because of her child's death. Throughout In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez’s Patria Mirabal develops from an optimistic young Catholic girl to a woman who doubts; subsequently, that educators can further come to understand the influence of God on one’s actions.

Grief and tragedy not only change you, but also reveal who you truly are. A transformation of faith, especially through anguish, is a theme throughout the story that binds many of the characters together, but impacts Patria’s life most prominently. In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, depicts the life of woman who goes from an aspirant nun, to a person with a lack of faith, and then back to having a strong faith in her religion. Events within the novel constituted these changes in Patria’s life with examples being her husband’s influence, the miscarriage of her third child, and the family pilgrimage which acted as a rekindling.

Throughout history women have always been minimized from social, sexual , and political aspects juxtaposed to men. Just like in the novel  In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, the author uses the Mirabal sisters to demonstrate the inequalities set in the Dominican Republic. The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo causes the Mirabal sisters to come together and overthrow Trujillo’s regime.Trujillo. Rafael Trujillo was despised by many yet many were forced to worship him like some type of paragon. As the novel progresses, illustrations of male dominance often appear throughout each chapter. The Mirabal sisters: Minerva, Patria, Maria Teresa and Dede each demonstrate the ability to overcome stigmas in order to obtain freedom.

Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of the Butterflies shows the lack of fairness in society and the importance of maintaining a strong family bond. Trujillo was not fair between men and women and granting men the rights to do whatever they want. The Mirabal sisters’ revolutionary against president Trujillo and fighting for freedom of the country and its people. In Saudi Arabia women are now granted to drive, but there some other things that men can do but women cannot. The Mirabal family has a strong maintain of a family bond. Minerva is one of the four sisters who is brave and had the courage to stand for others and started the revolution against the president.

In The Time of The Butterflies, memorializes the lives of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal, three sisters. The women became symbols of freedom and revolution for the Dominican Republic after their assassination for being involved in a movement to overrule Trujillo. The Mirabal sisters were not only fighting against the Trujillo regime, but also against the Dominican Republic’s patriarchal culture and gender roles. In the Dominican Republic women were expected to abide by the rules and expectations their fathers or husbands set out for them. In the novel, all four sisters reject their stereotypical roles as women in the society by standing up for their beliefs and the revolution.They decided that they would not let the

In the novel In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, one of the main characters, Minerva, shows many different types of courage throughout the whole story. The novel is about the true story of how a family is dominated by their countries dictator and the daughters attempt to free themselves and their family.

“That moment, I understood her hatred. My family had not been personally hurt by Trujillo, just as before losing my baby, Jesus had not taken anything away from me. But others had been suffering great losses…” This quote was stated by Patria in relation to religion. “I had heard, but I had not believed. Snug in my heart, fondling my pearl, I had ignored their cries of desolation. How could our loving, all-powerful Father allow us to suffer so? I looked up, challenging Him. And the two faces had merged!” she went on. Patria had begun struggling to keep her faith in God after she had lost her baby. She shows her disbelief in how callously God is behaving toward her. Throughout In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez’s Patria Mirabal develops from and optimistic young Catholic girl to a woman who doubts.

Death is a word associated with loss, grief and sadness, but in the novel In the Time of the Butterflies we see death in a whole new perspective; martyrdom. Strong, independent, caring, honest, and having firm beliefs are all characteristics we see in a martyr especially in Patria. In the novel we explore the wonders of Julia Alvarez’s writing and get to witness Patria as a martyr and an individual who fought for the right of women against a dictator: Trujillo.

The novel In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez and the play Antigone by Sophocles, both include similar characters, situations, and actions that react to the idea of a dangerous growing authority. The characters Dede from the Time of the Butterflies and Ismene from Antigone both strive to stay out of trouble with the government; however Dede’s approach is more effective as she becomes an oracle character by the end of the novel, for she lives to tell the story of the Mirabal sisters. Dede uses her relationship with her sisters and her own family to survive through the dangerous reign of Trujillo. When facing a regime such as Trujillo's regime, the survivors who live to tell their story, like Dede, are crucial to understanding and analyzing important historical moments. These survivors live through real tragedies, so they are primary resources with personal opinions and experiences.

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” (Andre Gide) In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, four sisters are led through a risk infested journey in which they must overcome hindrances with hollow consequences. This historical fiction novel takes us through a rollercoaster of events, incorporating everything from the partialities towards women, to life below the oppressive administration of the Dominican Republic’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The events painted by the four sisters give us some insight as to the positives and negatives of life in the Dominican Republic. As the novel progresses, we see the diversity in relation to the

Julia Alvarez’s book, in the time of the butterflies is set in the Dominican republic- small country that shares an island with haiti .The dominican republic was under dictatorship for 31 years.The brutal dictator Trujillo was in power from 1930-1961.His dictatorship was very oppressive. He had secret police and spie everywhere he didn’t give the citizens, especially women any basic freedoms. Julia Alvarez was born in the dominican republic durican this time , but her family was able to move to the united states. She wrote the novel, In the time of the Butterflies to honor three very strong women from her home country. Julia Alvarez explains the way society was in the dominican republic in her book, In the Time of the Butterflies.

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 sharing the stories of three Dominican sisters and their struggles to gain independence and speak their truth. The Dominican-American author dramatizes the lives of the Mirabal sisters, three historical women who were assassinated in 1961, for their involvement in the anti-Trujillo movement. Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria, a Cuban critic of Latin American literature, provides a bias insight with regards to the novel.

In literature, the concepts of foreshadowing, symbolism, personification, and similes convey specific meaning within a novel . Foreshadowing is an important aspect in literary concepts because the passage that accentuates this term indicates or affects what is to come in the future context of the novel. Symbolism has a significant role as well because it is an applied use of iconic representations and allows content interpretation. Furthermore, personification and similes are forms of poetic styles that expresses life of inanimate objects and adds descriptive details. As such, in the novel In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez combines a variety of rich details and significance in the passage, “ [...]

“In the Time of the Butterflies” takes place in the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. The author, Julia Alvarez is a native of the country, but moved to the US at a young age. She first heard about the sisters roughly around 1986 and instantly felt the need to share their story with the world. In the book, Alvarez tells the story of the Mirabal sisters and their fight for freedom against the Dominican dictator Trujillo. Rafael Trujillo reigned for about 30 years until his assassination in May of 1961. Trujillo’s reign of terror began in 1930 and the violence soon followed. The self centered dictator changed the names of cities and murdered roughly about 20,000 Haitians from the neighboring country. The book not only tells the sisters’