Rainbow Goddess Wept

time of the butterflies by Julia Alvarez. It is about 3 sisters who lose their life trying to stand

For decades Minerva, Maria Teresa, Patria and Dede’s bravery and heroism have lived in the heart of many Dominicans who suffered from the ruthless dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. The Mirabal sisters were four brave women who defied the traditional role of women in their Era and had a major role during revolution against Trujillo. Much of their story has been told in books and in movies from many different accounts. In Julia Alvarez’s novel “In the Time of the Butterflies”, she writes fictionalized personal accounts of the Mirabal sisters. Julia Alvarez structures her Novel in three parts with each chapter having a first person narrative for each sister. Alvarez personalized the way each of them would speak, feel and think, to even structuring Maria Teresa parts in the Novel as journal entries. This paper is an attempt to analyze how the structure of Julia Alvarez’s novel “In the Time of the Butterflies” can give the reader a better understanding of the Mirabal sisters, while utilizing Manuel F. Medina’s “Writing From Memory: History, Stories And Narrative Voices In In The time of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez”.

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.

Courage is an important trait that needs to be present in order to affect change. The book in the time of butterflies by Julia Alvarez demonstrates this need for courage in the story of the four Mirabal sisters who acted with courage to create change in the Dominican Republic. They do this by showing great courage in the face of oppression. Minerva was one of the bravest of the Mirabal sisters. She shows: moral, intellectual, emotional, and physical courage throughout her life. These are demonstrated in her leadership and her heroic actions of resistance. Some of her main sources of courage were her childhood friends, her family, her sense of justice, and desire for equality. She shows courage repeatedly sticking up for what is right despite of threats,

Once the family has been evacuated and are on a train to an internment camp, the daughter takes over as narrator and represents a different impression of the Japanese Americans. The

A young, married couple, part of this family also, is also struggling because the man is thinking on leaving. His wife is pregnant, but he believes the child is not his. She was rape, and this has drawn them apart. Two more women, are part of this family. They come to the island from the main land on the day the movie describes. One of them is religious; she believes in Jesus Crist. This is another struggle between religious traditions. The other women left the Island long ago to live in the main land. In this day she was coming back to her land to stay, to rediscover herself. However, she got rejected by many women in the family. They consider her a traitor because she left. The younger women accept her because they are more open-minded.

Marie Lu illustrates the theme that family is important to happiness through Day’s dialogues. Day and June both lost their family and now they are with each other trying to save Day’s little brother Eden. Day is hurt and they are in Las Vegas alone trying to find the

These examples of how the media negatively impacted the Simpson murder case continued on through the most crucial parts of the case, jury selection. After the media had been talking O.J. Simpson for months and months there was a survey down of the mostly people who would believe O.J. innocent and the results came out that black women would be more likely to believe that Simpson was innocent (Linder). The ending jury pool for this case were eight out of the twelve jurors were black female. In order for anyone one be convicted there must be an unanimous decision of the twelve jurors. With those odds, O.J. Simpsons chance of receiving a fair and unbiased trial become very slim. The juror pool already greatly favored him and was a huge way why he was found not guilty even though facts suggest otherwise. Polling was done on

After the death of her husband, Mother struggles to keep her family together by providing the support and guidance they need, and encouraging them to use good judgment and think of the family as a whole before making their decisions. As the family faces various obstacles, each seemingly more severe than the last, Mother begins

1. What are the most critical components of state regulation for managed care organizations? Which federal regulations also bring specific requirements for the operation of such entities? Discuss state and federal regulation of MCOs.

Somaly Mam, The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine (New York: Random House, 2009).

This book challenged many of my pre-convinced believes. For a long time, I believed people “chose” to be homosexual or heterosexual. Other ways to identified one’s self never even entered my mind. It would have been next to impossible to convince me people are born either way. Around puberty, when girls notice boys and vice versa, I believed a decision was made, I like A or B. Looking back, I honestly don’t know why I felt that way but I did. Lack of knowledge, understanding, media, family, upbringing, social norms, and so many other things influenced my thought process. Today, no I don’t believe people are determined by their body parts. I would use the book Raising My Rainbow as my source of “ammunition.” A child, three-years-old, with complete innocent and no idea of social norms, socially acceptable behavior, and gender roles was born a male but knew almost immediately they identified more as a girl. Their body did not correctly identify them; I would argue their brain did. If that is correct I would be interested to find out if there are scientifically differences between a “male brain” and a “female brain.”

My name is Iris and I am the Greek goddess of rainbow. I am also called goddess of the sea and of the sky. My mother’s name was Electra, who was an Oceanid, and her father’s name was Thaumas, god of the sea. An oceanid is a sea nymph. A nymph is a spirit of the nature who was once imagined to be a beautiful maiden. Nymphs are usually inhabiting woods or a form of water like my mom did. Iris had many siblings too. Her sisters were the Harpies and Arke, who is her twin sister. The Harpies were female monsters in the form of a bird with a human face. I sometimes serve as the messenger of the goddesses alongside Hermes. Many people have said that I travel on a rainbow to deliver all my messages to everybody, everywhere. This is halfway true because sometimes I do use my rainbow, while other times I use the west wind sent from my husband, Zephyrus, god of the west wind. Zephyrus and I are happily married with our child, whose name is Pothos. Sometimes people get me confused with the Roman goddess Iris. The other Iris is a goddess of sadness and doom along with fatality. Later on in my life, during the Titans and Olympians war, I had sided with the Olympians while Arke, my twin sister, sided with the Titans. In the war, both Arke and I were being used as messengers.

In the novel, Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman, the author shows the amount of determination and courage that one girl uses in her life. Catherine faces many challenges in her life but she works her way through them. She later finds out that after the amount of suffering she went through that there is brightness for her. Later she later learns that everything works out for the better. Every bad thing eventually turns good in the long run the only challenge is time.

In the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author uses symbolism and characterization to paint the scene of a girl in a literary fiction that has lost her way and ends up finding herself within her Grandmother through the cycles of life. Through the eyes of an unnamed girl we relive a past that has both a traumatic ending and a new leash on life; however, we do not get there without first being shown the way, enter “The Moths”.