The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez Essay

The book In The Time of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez emphasizes the patriarchal culture of the Dominican Republic. Throughout the book, it was shown how much power men held over women in the Dominican culture. It was expected that the women would be housewives while the men had the real jobs. Minerva challenged this by expressing her desire to study law. The fact that the Mirabal sisters started a revolution and stood up to Trujillo especially in a culture where women are maybe afraid to speak up over men just shows how strong each of the sisters were.

In the historical fiction novel “In the Time of the Butterflies,” written by Julia Alvarez, claims that Patria's faith made an impact on her involvement in the resistance. First, the author uses similes to show her love for religion, next she uses imagery to help paint an image in the reader's mind and finally, she concludes by the use of metaphors. The author’s purpose is to show how Patria’s faith changes throughout the story, in order to help the audience understand that being involved in the resistance can change others. She hopes to reach an audience that struggles with their faith and can relate to Patria’s thoughts. This creates a relationship that surrounds religion.

In the Time of the Butterflies revolves around the Mirabal sisters, women living in a very patriarchal, “macho” society. Their personal struggles are part of the power of their story, as they stand not only as symbols of rebellion against Trujillo, but at the same time as loving, independent women with husbands and children. Alvarez shows how the resistance against women in politics can even be propagated by the women themselves, as both Mamá and Patria initially express sentiments that women are inferior to men, or else are somehow “purer” and so shouldn’t dirty themselves with politics. In talking to the interview woman in the present day, Dedé says that women “followed their husbands,” but she knows that this is an excuse, as she is the

In Julia Alvarez’s, In the Time of the Butterflies, the theme of family is very prevalent. It is also, apparent that there is an outreach in the book of an extended family that the Mirabal sisters keep in close contact to. The four sisters and their dysfunctional family, make for a wild mixture of personalities and attitudes that keep the family strong. From the oldest sister to the youngest, they each watch out for each other, but sometimes decide to following each other’s reckless ideas, which leads them into trouble or death. In María Teresa’s passage, she has found a way to have a connection of family and compassion to those who are not even her family.

get older they start to realize what is really going on in the Dominican Republic. This book takes you

As the great Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” The book In the Time of the Butterflies is about a family of four girls who are living in the Dominican Republic under a very dangerous dictator. They rebel against him and the government to join a revolution along with many other people from the Dominican. In In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez uses the characterization of Patria to demonstrate the danger of passive religious belief.

Rafael Trujillo, a dictator of Dominican republic said “ He who doesn’t know how to deceive does not know how to rule”. So that was Trujillo’s plan, while the whole country was celebrating the freedom of their country Dominican republic, he was planning to be the fear of people, and use women however and whenever he wanted. That’s what he did, became a dictator, made people start and end their day with him and used women like a piece of kleenex used it and threw it away. This dictatorship caused a lot of people wanting to overthrow like the butterflies and if women wanted to fight for their freedom, the husband didn’t let them because of the anxiety that of getting killed. In the book In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, opposing action done by the government/Trujillo influenced Minerva and Patria’s perspective of their rights leading them to want to overthrow the government, in contrast, Dede’s perception on moving forward as women changed because the negative

In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, there are many aspects that have an effect on courage. Each of the four Mirabal sisters have their own moments of courage that are unique in different ways. Throughout the novel, the Mirabal sisters’ motivations to become involved in the revolution all emerge from their influential friends family members, and their desire to protect and impress those people. Although Patria’s motivation to have courage and take part in the Revolution involves her family, the main cause of Patria’s collaboration is due to a spiral of events and her strong faith.

In the book Alvarez informs us that this takes place during Trujillo 's reign over the Dominican Republic in the 1930’s to the 1960’s. Throughout history dictators have risen and fallen all across the world. Many have been seen as evil, and sometimes good to others, but no matter what a persons view tend to be there are some who even consider them god. Due to a dictators extensive powers and complete control over every aspect of a persons life this is what comes to be. Trujillo is just the same, at first his true motives were questioned and it wasn’t apparent to all what he really was. As the Mirabel sisters grow up it becomes clear that Trujillo is in control of more of their lives than it may seemed. Trujillo leads a complete authoritarian rule over the Dominican Republic with spies everywhere, this can suggest that he trying to assume the role of a terrible god, who is always watching and ready to punish. While all

“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

“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’

History may define the identity of a nation, but its progress and social change makes the nation a legacy. The way society is systemized today is the result of a millennia of years of victories and failures. Social change is a blessing of humanity where the basic traits of expression, belief, greed and cruelty unite to determine the fate of society. Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies illuminates the early to middle 20th century Dominican Republic society, where the Mirabal sisters, Dedé, Maria Teresa, Patria, and Minerva, are agitators of revolution after seeing dictator

This critique written by Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria of In the Time of the Butterflies focuses mainly on the political facts that are not apparent in the novel. He states that Alvarez makes her novel appear blurry, not making it a “serious historical fiction.” However, the critical commentary that Echevarria made would not necessarily apply to the film due to the fact that Alvarez’s intentions are to initially expose readers to life in the Dominican Republic under the control of Trujillo, rather than have it be a serious historical fictional novel with facts and real life events. In fact, the film focused more on the historical aspect of this time period unlike Alvarez’s novel. It provided slow motion slide shows of Trujillo’s

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.

In the Time of the Butterflies during the 1940s, in the Dominican Republic, the ruler or dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo punished people if they didn’t do as he told them and plenty of other cruel things. He ruled for about 30 years, so the people were tortured for quite a long time. He became the dictator by eliminating everyone who had power above him. He even married his wives just to use them to get the the top and control everyone. It was just an unfair way to handle things and an unfair country overall. In her book, “In the Time of the Butterflies,” Julia Alvarez incorporates the history of the famous Mirabal sisters by telling the history of their life and how it was back then for their Dominican Republic country. Julia Alvarez