Vladimir Nabokov and Lolita

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 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”.

The Moths by Helena Maria Viramontes is a short story about a relationship between a teenage girl and her abuelita. Although, the title seems unfitting for a story about a loving relationship between family members the significance of the moths, in this story, has a much deeper meaning than one would think. Like many other aspects of the piece, the insects have a symbolic meaning in order to convey the author’s feelings during the time of her grandmother’s death. Throughout the story we see the use of multiple descriptions, settings, as well as dialogue in order to pass a message to the audience. The Moths is not only a story about death and brokenness, but a story about cures and peace. Upon further examination of this narrative, the story presents symbolic attributes about the main characters personalities, descriptions, and religious imagery that tell the story about a cure for brokenness, a rebirth of hope, and coming of age.

In the city of Waukegan, Illinois, a pair of expectant figures bore provocation for the latest addition to their miniscule family of two. Thus, on August 22, 1920, Esther Marie Moberg Bradbury, a Swedish expatriate, delivered an eventual novelist. To provide the necessitated essentials required to support his household, Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, the patriarch of their residence, utilized his capabilities by endeavoring as a lineman for power and telephone utilities. Through his zeal and persistence for his occupation, they were able to make ends meet for several annums and led a simple lifestyle in which Ray Bradbury, their son, developed a strong endearment for all miscellaneous illusory and imaginative. He thoroughly enjoyed the concept of enchantment, which was an attribute that his parents encouraged. Thus, the youth could often be caught perusing adventurous or fantastical compositions of distinct lengths and variety. From a very early point in the duration of his existence, he had adjudicated that he’d achieve immortality through his own generated compositions. He perceived that the heroes he’d comprised in his stories would long persist after his tangible existence had either disseminated or ceased to be in its entirety. In 1934, his new residency became Los Angeles, California where the enterprising, imaginative youth fulfilled his formal schooling and solidified his career as an author. To financially subsidize his individual costs and occupation, he bore 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.

The moth is a multicultural symbol of the metamorphosis of life. Helena Maria Viramontes “The Moths” shows the transformation of a young adolescence to maturity like that of a larva into a moth. The story is called “The Moths” as Viramontes employs mastery of magical realism, metamorphosis symbolism and vivid imagery in her reference to the moths. It is also used as a symbolic reference in order to show the passage of life (rite of passage), rebirth/baptism, nurture and the dynamic of oppression of the narrator.

In some cases butterflies represent beauty, freedom, and imagery. In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, The Mirabal sisters represent honor and freedom by the way they react in the book. An example of Minerva Mirabal exemplifying freedom is when she says, “I stare at Manuel de Moya as if pinning him to the wall. ‘I’d sooner jump out that window than be forced to do something against my honor’” (111). This quote explains how Minerva will stick for her true roots, and will not ever do anything to dishonor her family. Minerva and the rest of the Mirabal sisters do what they think is right and will do whatever it takes to stay true to what they believe in. Another example of the Mirabal sisters representing a butterfly is when

“Chapter Nine: Dede” “‘Tell the butterflies to avoid the road to Puerta Plata. It's not safe.’ The butterflies, Lord God, how people romanticized other people's terror!” (Alvarez 199). " The irony of Dede’s distressed response to being called a “Butterfly” characterizes her nervousness and reluctance to being a national icon.

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

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.

Throughout the novel In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez utilizes the characters Patria, Maria Teresa, and Minerva, to display the daily struggles of women in the Dominican Republic who are fighting in a patriarchal and oppressive society against the regime. All that the Mirabal sisters have ever know is a world where they are thought of as inferior to men. Where male authority defines who they are; women trapped in a community where their voices don’t matter and they should be seen and not heard. As perceived in the novel, Alvarez uses figurative language as well as the theme of oppression to describe the fact that Dominican women are sexulized based upon their apperances.

“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

When writing about important historical figures, people often make the error of building these figures into the image of an invincible, godlike hero, when in fact, they are ordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things. The author of In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez, takes a historical figure, Minerva Mirabal, and shows the completely human side of the woman who inspired the revolution against the Dominican dictator, Rafael Trujillo. Despite her self-doubt and other insecurities, Minerva exhibits remarkable courage that inspires a revolution.

The two women’s desires are exposes in both of the poems. In “The Laboratory” her obsession with the colours and the different kinds of poison has a slight

To some degree, every artist creates his or her own artistic life preserver, and in doing so resequences and conserves their own artistic DNA so that it may be transferred onto another generation. Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir Speak, Memory, is not only that preserver, but the tug boat that it holds onto, heavy and cramped with the memories and history that Nabokov retells his readers against the currents of time. Speak, Memory operates thematically, not chronologically. Nabokov returns anew to his early childhood and pulls in, as it were, the memories associated with certain themes. Then he turns, changes directions, and sets off again. One such theme that resonates throughout the novel is that of exile and deteterritorialization, both