The Time Of The Butterflies

“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

In the Time of the Butterflies, a novel by Julia Alvarez, takes place in the Dominican Republic during the time of the Trujillo regime. The main characters are four sisters, Minerva, Patria, María Teresa, and Dedé, who fight against Trujillo’s oppression. All of them except for Dedé get killed in the end by Trujillo. A great amount of violence occurs over the course of the novel.

Out from the kitchen and into the world, women are making a better name for themselves. Although humankind tends to be male dominated, men are not the only species that inhabit the world that they live on. In Julia Alvarez's novel In the Time of the Butterflies, the women of the Dominican Republic are expected to grow up to be housewives and lacking a formal education. Women may be cherished like national treasures, but they are not expected to fulfill their truest potentials as human beings.

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.

In her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez unfolds a dramatic character transformation of the Mirabal sister, Maria Teresa. She is detailed to be a very thoughtful character who always seem to look out for others, especially those important to her in life. Alvarez induces this empowering development of Maria Teresa through the usage of diction, point of view and selection of detail.

In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, creates a fiction story about the true events of the Mirabal sisters and taking over the Dominican Republic’s government. In the Time of the Butterflies contains the classic war between passion and responsibility. Personal causes, love, a desire for revenge, determination to redress a wrong, or other emotions or drives conflict with moral duty. In In the Time of the Butterflies, many characters confront the demands of a private passion that conflicts with his or her responsibilities. Patria, the oldest Mirabal sister, struggles with her faith, and deciding whether to join the revolution with her sisters, or to follow her faith. Patria’s religion was an important aspect of her life since she was very young and throughout the course of the story, she attains and loses her faith in God.

In conclusion, In the Time of the Butterflies, is a very touching and breathtaking book that embedded the historical event into a chronological story that showed the symbolic and thematic topics that occurred in the time periods the book was set in which was from 1930’s-1990’s where Dede was telling the

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.

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.

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”.

During the 1930s - 1960s in the Dominican Republic there was a dictatorship going on by Rafael Trujillo. Trujillo ran the Dominican Republic as his own personal possession. He and his friends held nearly 60 percent of the country's resources. If things didn’t go Trujillo’s way then that person who broke the law would be either prisoned or vanished. In her book, “In the Time of the Butterflies”, Julia Alvarez explores many different themes, such as Family, Courage, and Freedom. Each of the Mirabal sisters had different personalities. Patria the oldest sister was the most religious. Dedé the second eldest was the only sister who survived. Minerva the third Mirabal sister was the one who was more wrapped up in the revolution. Maria Teresa the youngest of the sisters just wanted to be like her oldest sisters.The butterfly is a symbol for the main characters, the Mirabal sisters. Butterflies are unique, they represent freedom, and they have a very short life span. The Mirabal sisters, much like the butterflies were unique, and died young. They had to sacrifice their lives in order to be free like butterflies.

“If you don’t study your history, you are going to repeat it” (312). Dedé states this in In the Time of the Butterflies after being questioned why she shares her story. The historical fiction novel by Julia Alvarez, takes place in the 1940’s, under the dictatorship of Trujillo, and in 1994 when Dedé recites her family’s historic and engrossing life. The Mirabal sisters up rise against the government, hoping to gain freedom for the Dominican Republic. Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies exemplifies the attributes Vladimir Nabakov would consider necessary for great literature as specified in his essay, “Good Readers and Good Writers.” Alvarez’s masterpiece focuses on a rebellious young woman who challenges the dictatorial Trujillo

The Mirabal sisters were an inspiration to Julia Alvarez for her feminist movement and "are the subject[s] of her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies" (Schaefer). Julia Alvarez's mother's family "paved the way for [their] return [to the United States] and, for a time, secured their safety [in the Dominican Republic]" due to their "wealth and political connections" (Schaefer). Additionally, "a well-placed American friend of Dr. Alvarez, arranged for him to receive a medical internship in the States" which provided the family the luxury of living in a "mostly German and Italian middle- to upper-middle-class neighborhood" in New York City (Schaefer). Julia Alvarez and her sisters "encountered prejudice and general ignorance" as the "only Latinas" in the neighborhood (Schaefer). Alvarez and her sisters were also "taunted as 'spics' and 'greaseballs' in the schoolyard" due to the color of their skin, accents, and names (Schaefer).

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 companies. This unequal social injustice has existed all around the world, especially in the Dominican Republic. In this country, men always thought the only responsibility of women was staying at home and taking care of the whole family. In addition, men did not care what women really wanted, and the only way was to force women to do what men asked. In the movie In the Time of the Butterflies, which happened in the Dominican Republic, people struggle under the brutal dictatorship of Trujillo between the 1930`s and 1960`s. In this movie, men play the important gender role that women have no right to apply for university, and they have to be obedient to men. However, women work hard to defeat their oppressed unequal fate and seek feminism, especially for the three Mirabal sisters. The Mirabal sisters are normal women who live in a farm with their parents. Unfortunately, their father is killed by Trujillo, so they become revolutionaries. They lead people to dare to start the revolution against feminist resistance. Although the Mirabal sisters understand they will sacrifice their lives, they never abandon due to their respectable ambition to gain equal rights as men.