In the Time of the Butterflies

In the Time of the Butterflies is a novel written by Julia Alvarez. The book follows the four Mirabal sisters living in the Dominican Republic under the rule of a ruthless dictator. Patria, Minerva, Dede, and Maria Teresa are all very different, but come together to help overthrow their ruler, Trujillo.

Biographical Information About Julia Alvarez
Julia Alvarez is a writer and poet. She was born on March 27, 1950, in New York City, but moved to the Dominican Republic soon after, where she was raied until she was ten. Her father was a revolutionist and the family had to flee after an unsucessful attempt to overthrow Rafael Trujillo.They lived in Brooklyn, New York while Julia was growing up. She attended Middlebury College and Syracuse University. The theme of being caught between two cultures reoccurs frequently in Julia Alvarez's work. The theme appeared in her first novel, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991). The book was ultimatley successful.The theme also appeared in her second novel, In the Time of Butterflies, published in 1994. Julia Alvarez is a very versatile author, as she has written several childrens' books, as well as young adult and adult books, and she is an accomplished poet.

Setting: Historical Information
Christopher Columbus first discovered the Dominican Republic in 1492 while on his first voyage. He named the island Hispaniola. Columbus' admiration for the island led to European settlers establishing settlements there. They put the Taino Indians, the islands natural inhabitants, were forced into slavery a were eventually wiped out. Columbus's brother, Bartholomew, was made governor and founded the city of Santo Domingo in 1496, which is the capital city. Hispaniola remained under Spanish rule until 1697 when the western part was possessed by the French. It became the Rupublic of Haiti in 1804. In 1809 the eastern side of the island returned to Spanish rule. In 1821 the Spanish settlers declared an independent state but just weeks later, Haitian forces invaded the eastern portion of the island. The enitre island became under Haitian rule for the next 22 years. On February 27, 1844, the eastern side of the island declared independence and gave their land the name "Dominican Republic." The 70 years that followed were characterized by political unrest and civil war, mainly due to fights for leadership of the government by Dominican strongmen. In 1930, Rafael Trujillo became the dictator of the Dominican Republic. He ruled with an iron fist and was widely unpopular throughout the region. He was assassinated in 1961.

Genre
A fictional novel is a book that is not true or incorporates truth with fiction. The book “In the Time of the Butterflies” is a fictional book with nonfictional themes surrounding it. Examples of fictional book are “Walk Two Moons” by Sharon Creech, “Tess of the d'Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy, or “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte.

Plot Summary
In the Time of the Butterflies tells about the lives of the four Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva, Dede, and Maria Teresa who are living under the rule of the Dominican Republic dictator, Trujillo. The book starts out in 1994. The only living sister, Dede, is narrating. Then the setting changes to 1938 each sister tells about their lives from then until 196o, when three of then are in a fatal car wreck. In the beginning of the novel each girl has admiration for their president, El Jefe (chief). Then slowly, throughout the course of the book, each girl learns the truth about their beloved president. Minerva is the first to turn on Trujillo. She despises him from the time she is a young teenager until she dies. She helps in an underground society to try to overturn Trujillo. Eventually her baby sister Maria Teresa joins her in the movement. And soon Patria and Dede do, too. Towards the end of the novel, Minerva and Maria Teresa get thrown into jail for being radicals. Patria, Minerva, and Maria Tersa's husbands all are imprisoned too. The girls get out of prison and go off to live with their mother and children in their mother's house. One day, when they are going home from visiting their husbands, Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa's car is ambushed by Trujillo's workers. They kill all three girls and their driver, then send the Jeep off the side of the mountain. Dede is the only one left and must take care of all of her family and sisters' families. Soon after the girls' death, Trujillo gets murdered. The book ends in 1994 in Dede's house in the Dominican Republic. She is going to sleep and she says that she feels like her sisters' are finally at rest.

Characters

 * Patria Mirabal- Oldest sister; wanted to become a nun
 * Minerva Mirabal- The second oldest sister; wants more than anything to help overturn Trujillo
 * Dede Mirabal- The third sister; she wants to stay out of the whole thing with Trujillo and live her life
 * Maria Teresa Mirabal- Youngest sister; is just as passionate as Minerva about overturning Trujillo
 * Trujillo- Dictator

Author's Style
Julia Alvarez often writes stories about being “caught in two cultures”. Her works often reflect her Hispanic background and incorporate ideas of her life growing up in the United States. She mainly writes nonfiction books. Some of her books are nonfiction with fictional themes such as, In the Time of the Butterflies. An example that demonstrates Julia Alvarez's style is the book “In the Time of The Butterflies”. It combines fact and fiction. The Mirabal sisters' were very real people, but “In the Time of the Butterflies” is fictional with factual parts mixed in. Julia Alvarez created who she thought the Mirabal sisters' were and combined it with factual information about the Dominican Republic from the time of 1938 to 1960.

Setting
During the time period of the book the Dominican Republic was under a horrible rule. Rafael Trujillo was someone that almost everyone feared and hated. His rule killed many people and caused many more to flee to the United States. The state of turmoil in the book is obvious from the time Minerva learns of Trujillo until the end of the book. Trujillo was the sole cause of most of the deaths that occurred in the Mirabal family. The Trujillo rule was not a time that anyone would want to live in.

Themes
The Right's of Women- Even in the later periods of this book, the obvious reluctance to let women into public life and politics is clear. The Dominican Republic did not want their women doing anything that could be considered “mans work”. Women often didn't go to school or college, and their careers mostly consisted of staying home and following everything that their husbands told them to do. As Minerva was fighting for her freedom from Trujillo's rule, she was also fighting for her voice in a mans world.

Courage- It took much courage to do what the Mirabal girls did. Minerva was filled with much courage from a very young age. And soon two of her sisters' followed suit. Dede however did not possess the courage that her sisters' did. She was scared of what would happen and even more afraid of Jaimito and what he would think or if her would leave her. She was more cowardly than the others.

Motifs
Bravery- Bravery is a reoccuring idea throughout the story. Each girl possesses bravery in one shape or another.

The Effects of Dictatorship- Dictators can ruin countries and lives, which is obviously what happened in this story.

Symbols
Mate's Braid- Represents the innocence that she and the other still possessed despite the hardships they faced with Trujillo

Butterflies- Represents the ongoing transformation of each of the four women from little girls to grown women fighting for what they believe in. It also represents the transformation that the Dominican Republic underwent from Trujillo to present day

Significance of Opening and Closing Scenes
Opening: The opening scene starts with Dede reliving some memories from her childhood, like sitting out on the porch with her family. Then it switches to Minerva. Minerva is telling about how she convinced her father to send her and her sisters away to school at Inmaculada Concepcion, where she meets Sinita and  learns the truth about the dictator, Trujillo. There her life changes forever.

Closing: The ending scene tells about Dede and her struggle to get over her sisters' deaths. It shows how she helps her family through and becomes a mother to her sisters' children. At the end of the novel it shows how her sisters' spirits finally go to rest.

Memorable Quotes
1. "A chill goes through her, for she feels it in her bones, the future is now beginning. By the time it is over, it will be the past, and she doesn't want to be the only one left to tell their story."

This quote is foreshadowing to the inevitable outcome of the death of Dede's sisters. As it says she “doesn't want to be the only one left to tell their story”. She doesn't know that all her sister's will die at the same time, but she does already know that she doesn't want to be alone in the whole thing. She doesn't want Trujillo to punish anyone in her family for saying anything negative against him.

2. "And that's how I got free. I don't mean just going to sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. I mean in my head after I got to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I'd just left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country."

In this quote Minerva realizes she is free or “enlightened”. She learns the truth about Trujillo from Sinita and basically becomes a whole new person. She becomes a revolutionist in the fight against Trujillo. But, she also realizes that going to Inmaculada does not make her any freer than she was before. Like she said in the quote she just “left a small cage to go into a bigger one”, which means she realizes that she is not truly free anywhere in the Dominican Republic as long as it is under Trujillo's rule.

3. "We've traveled almost the full length of the island and can report that every corner of it is wet, every river overflows its banks, every rain barrel is filled to the brim, every wall washed clean of writing no one knows how to read anyway."

In this quote Minerva is driving back from the capital with her parents after her father is released from prison. The wetness she is thinking about is symbolizing the aftermath of the figurative storm that she inflicted on her family after she slapped Trujillo at the Discovery Day dance, which is the reason that her father was in prison in the first place.

4. "She took both my hands in hers as if we were getting ready to jump together into a deep spot in the lagoon of Ojo de Agua. 'Breathe slowly and deeply,' she intoned, 'slowly and deeply.'"I pictured myself on a hot day falling, slowly and deeply, into those cold layers of water. I held on tight to my sister's hands, no longer afraid of anything but that she might let go."

In this quote Minerva just got through telling Maria Teresa about the secret meetings she has been attending at Don Horacio's house, which is why Maria Teresa had to lie to the nun about their uncle's illness, so she could cover for Minerva. This is the moment when Mate symbolically “joins” the revolution because she understands why she had to lie for her sister and how she is standing by her in her revolutionary meetings.

5. "What did I want? I didn't know anymore. Three years stuck in Ojo de Agua, and I was like that princess put to sleep in the fairy tale. I read and complained and argued with Dede, but all that time I was snoring away."When I met Lio, it was as if I woke up. The givens, all I'd been taught, fell away like so many covers when you sit up in bed."

It is ironic that Minerva think s of herself as a princess in a fairytale in this quote because she is not like a princess at all. She is not very feminine at all. Lio inspires Minerva to “wake up” and become involved with the revolution going on all around her, instead of just “snoring away”.