In the Time of the Butterflies
Encyclopedia
In the Time of the Butterflies is a historical
novel by Julia Alvarez
, relating an account of the Mirabal sisters
during the time of the Trujillo
regime in the Dominican Republic
. The book is written in the first and third person, by and about the Mirabal sisters. First published in 1994, the story was adapted into a feature film in 2001
.
Dede Mirabal to discuss the tragic story of her sisters. Although Dede at first refuses, she eventually tells her sisters' tale. She explains how Minerva had a dream of going to a school, which was unusual for farmers' daughters. When she eventually convinced her father to allow her go, Minerva meets a girl, Sinita, who later became one of her best friends. Sinita eventually confided in Minerva the truth about Trujillo - that their "glorious" leader was a killer.
During the time Minerva was in school, other events help bring the dictator's secrets to light. One of Minerva's friends was taken by Trujillo to carry his child, and was then exiled from the Dominican Republic to escape the wrath of Trujillo's wife.
Years later, Minerva was invited to a party held by Trujillo in Santo Domingo. When he repeatedly tried to court her, she slapped him, putting her family in jeopardy. The Mirabal sisters and their husbands were participants in the June 14 political group, which operated through illegal gatherings in Patria Mirabal's house, where they discussed their plot against Trujillo. The members of the group used false names, with the Mirabal sisters all referred to as "Butterfly", followed by a number to indicate the individual sister.
As punishment for their political activities, Trujillo orders three of the sisters be killed on Puerto Plata Road, with their driver Rufino, while returning from visiting their husbands in jail. The women and driver are beaten to death and later their vehicle and bodies are dumped off a cliff in order to make their deaths look like an accident.
Papá: Father to the Mirabal girls, and married to Mama. He heads the family store. In his desperation for a son, he had an affair which produced four other daughters, he had a kind heart. Real name Don Enrique
Pedrito González: A farmer. He married Patria Mirabal when she was 22, on February 24, 1947. He and his wife eventually join the revolution, along with their son, Nelson. He is later imprisoned, along with his brothers-in-law, Leandro and Manolo, for participating in the revolution. He and Patria have three children: Nelson, Noris, and Raulito.
Fela: A worker for the Mirabal family who claims to be a fortune teller. After the girls die, she claims to be possessed by them. Minou goes to Fela for a time to "talk" to her mother after her death.
Minou: One of Minerva's children, Minou was born around 1956. Like her mother, she is strong-willed and independent.
Don Manuel: Trujillo's right-hand man. Manuel is very "tall and dapper" (page 110). He is a corrupt politician, like many of Trujillo's cronies. Manuel does many of Trujillo's odd jobs, such as delivering messages and threats for him.
Trujillo: Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, also known as "El Jefe" (the Chief), is the self-appointed dictator of the Dominican Republic. A harsh ruler, he demands complete obedience of everyone. He commits many cruel and unjust acts against his people, such as imprisonment without trial, confiscating land and possessions, and torture. Though married, he has many affairs with young girls who he keeps in houses around the country. He is also identified as a rapist. As his regime falls apart, he becomes even more vicious and cruel, and eventually has the Mirabals girls (all except for Dede) killed, when they become too much of an opposition to his decaying power.
Virgilio: Virgilio, code name "Lio". He is a revolutionary, but unlike most, he is not underground. He speaks out publicly against the government, which is considered suicide. Lio was forced into hiding because of his actions against the government. He was very close to Minerva before he fled the country. He asked her to flee with him but Minerva did not get the letter in time because her father was hiding it from her.
Jaimito: Jaimito is Dede's husband and cousin. Jaimito and Dede live on his farm after they are married. He is opposed to his wife's family's involvement in the revolution, and forbids her to join. When he and Dede were first married he was kind, but over the years he and Dede drift apart. He cares deeply for his boys.
Dedé: Dede is the second Mirabal sister. She is not as certain about the revolution as her sisters, and feels weaker because of that fact. She has mixed feeling about joining the revolution, so she doesn't. She uses her husband, Jaimito, as the reason she doesn't join. He doesn't want her involved in the revolution, and the conflict tears their marriage apart. She is forever worrying about her sisters, telling them they'll be killed. Eventually her predictions come true. She has three boys.
María Teresa: The youngest of the four Mirabal sisters, she is very materialistic. She is married to Leandro and has one daughter, Jacqueline. She joined the revolution while living with her sister Minerva because she wanted to feel worthy of Leandro. María Teresa matures into a strong revolutionary woman.
Minerva: The third Mirabal sister, and certainly the most headstrong. She is quite intent on law school as a young girl, and succeeds in completing it as an adult, although her license to practice is withheld by Trujillo as revenge. She has a brief romance with the revolutionary leader "Lio" before she meets Manolo in law school (also a revolutionary), and marries him. She has one daughter, Minou, and one son, Manolito.
Patria: The oldest of the Mirabal sisters, she is very religious. While looking for her calling from God, she instead finds her husband, Pedrito, whom she marries at age 16. Her faith wavers intensely as a young woman. She takes the fetal death of her third child as a punishment from God, which drives her further into a religious depression. She later regains her faith on a pilgrimage to Higuey that she takes with her mother and sisters. She has three children: Nelson, Noris, and Raul Ernesto. She is also a revolutionary, starting a Christian revolutionary group and merging it with her sister Minerva's revolutionary group.
Sinita: Minerva's good friend, whom she met at Inmaculada Catholic School for Girls. She later goes to Santo Domingo and becomes a revolutionary, just like Minerva. All the men in Sinita's' family were killed by Trujillo, the last when she was a young girl, anchoring her deep-seated hatred of Trujillo.
Rufino de la Cruz: The Mirabals' driver whenever they rented a car to go over the mountains to visit their husbands in prison, he was very loyal to the "butterflies", and they trusted him wholeheartedly. He was murdered along with the Mirabal girls. He has a wife and one child.
.
The Port Washington School District in Port Washington, NY banned this book because it has a detailed diagram depicting how to construct a bomb. "We believe that the purpose of education is to expose students to all areas of reality so that we can make our own judgments. Isn't that why we are able to read Romeo and Juliet without committing suicide, or The Lord of the Flies without being violent? We should not ban a powerful piece of literature just because of a diagram." stated a New York Times opinion piece written by two Schreiber High School students where the book was banned.
In the Time of the Butterflies has won its spot as "The BIG READ" selection (National Endowment for the Arts) and a "Readers Round Table" (Algonquin)
A motif of the novel is the ruinous effect that dictatorship can have on a nation and its citizens, emotionally and physically. Over his 30-year reign, Trujillo killed 300,000 Haitians. One of the focuses of the novel was his agenda to kill or eliminate blacks who occupy one-third of the Island of Hispanola, or Haiti, while the Dominican Republic, which occupies two-thirds of the area of Hispanola, contains a population of 75% mixed background.
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
novel by Julia Alvarez
Julia Álvarez
Julia Alvarez is a Dominican-American poet, novelist, and essayist. Born in New York of Dominican descent, she spent the first ten years of her childhood in the Dominican Republic, until her father's involvement in a political rebellion forced her family to flee the country.Alvarez rose to...
, relating an account of the Mirabal sisters
Mirabal sisters
The Mirabal sisters were four Dominican political dissidents who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. Three of the sisters were assassinated by unknown persons...
during the time of the Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo
Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina , nicknamed El Jefe , ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. He officially served as president from 1930 to 1938 and again from 1942 to 1952, otherwise ruling as an unelected military strongman...
regime in the Dominican Republic
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
. The book is written in the first and third person, by and about the Mirabal sisters. First published in 1994, the story was adapted into a feature film in 2001
In the Time of the Butterflies (film)
In the Time of the Butterflies is a 2001 feature film, produced for the Showtime television network, directed by Mariano Barroso based on the Julia Álvarez book of the same name...
.
Plot
This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. The sisters make a political commitment to overthrow the Trujillo regime. They are harassed, persecuted, and imprisoned, their family suffers retaliation from the Military Intelligence Service, and they are eventually awarded awards for their awesome leadership. The book presents the perspective of each, including the one surviving sister, Dede. Throughout the book the events leading up to each sisters political awakening are discussed.Dede Mirabal to discuss the tragic story of her sisters. Although Dede at first refuses, she eventually tells her sisters' tale. She explains how Minerva had a dream of going to a school, which was unusual for farmers' daughters. When she eventually convinced her father to allow her go, Minerva meets a girl, Sinita, who later became one of her best friends. Sinita eventually confided in Minerva the truth about Trujillo - that their "glorious" leader was a killer.
During the time Minerva was in school, other events help bring the dictator's secrets to light. One of Minerva's friends was taken by Trujillo to carry his child, and was then exiled from the Dominican Republic to escape the wrath of Trujillo's wife.
Years later, Minerva was invited to a party held by Trujillo in Santo Domingo. When he repeatedly tried to court her, she slapped him, putting her family in jeopardy. The Mirabal sisters and their husbands were participants in the June 14 political group, which operated through illegal gatherings in Patria Mirabal's house, where they discussed their plot against Trujillo. The members of the group used false names, with the Mirabal sisters all referred to as "Butterfly", followed by a number to indicate the individual sister.
As punishment for their political activities, Trujillo orders three of the sisters be killed on Puerto Plata Road, with their driver Rufino, while returning from visiting their husbands in jail. The women and driver are beaten to death and later their vehicle and bodies are dumped off a cliff in order to make their deaths look like an accident.
Characters
Mamá: Mother to the Mirabal girls, and married to Papa. She takes care of the girls and is always worried about them.Papá: Father to the Mirabal girls, and married to Mama. He heads the family store. In his desperation for a son, he had an affair which produced four other daughters, he had a kind heart. Real name Don Enrique
Pedrito González: A farmer. He married Patria Mirabal when she was 22, on February 24, 1947. He and his wife eventually join the revolution, along with their son, Nelson. He is later imprisoned, along with his brothers-in-law, Leandro and Manolo, for participating in the revolution. He and Patria have three children: Nelson, Noris, and Raulito.
Fela: A worker for the Mirabal family who claims to be a fortune teller. After the girls die, she claims to be possessed by them. Minou goes to Fela for a time to "talk" to her mother after her death.
Minou: One of Minerva's children, Minou was born around 1956. Like her mother, she is strong-willed and independent.
Don Manuel: Trujillo's right-hand man. Manuel is very "tall and dapper" (page 110). He is a corrupt politician, like many of Trujillo's cronies. Manuel does many of Trujillo's odd jobs, such as delivering messages and threats for him.
Trujillo: Rafael Leonidas Trujillo, also known as "El Jefe" (the Chief), is the self-appointed dictator of the Dominican Republic. A harsh ruler, he demands complete obedience of everyone. He commits many cruel and unjust acts against his people, such as imprisonment without trial, confiscating land and possessions, and torture. Though married, he has many affairs with young girls who he keeps in houses around the country. He is also identified as a rapist. As his regime falls apart, he becomes even more vicious and cruel, and eventually has the Mirabals girls (all except for Dede) killed, when they become too much of an opposition to his decaying power.
Virgilio: Virgilio, code name "Lio". He is a revolutionary, but unlike most, he is not underground. He speaks out publicly against the government, which is considered suicide. Lio was forced into hiding because of his actions against the government. He was very close to Minerva before he fled the country. He asked her to flee with him but Minerva did not get the letter in time because her father was hiding it from her.
Jaimito: Jaimito is Dede's husband and cousin. Jaimito and Dede live on his farm after they are married. He is opposed to his wife's family's involvement in the revolution, and forbids her to join. When he and Dede were first married he was kind, but over the years he and Dede drift apart. He cares deeply for his boys.
Dedé: Dede is the second Mirabal sister. She is not as certain about the revolution as her sisters, and feels weaker because of that fact. She has mixed feeling about joining the revolution, so she doesn't. She uses her husband, Jaimito, as the reason she doesn't join. He doesn't want her involved in the revolution, and the conflict tears their marriage apart. She is forever worrying about her sisters, telling them they'll be killed. Eventually her predictions come true. She has three boys.
María Teresa: The youngest of the four Mirabal sisters, she is very materialistic. She is married to Leandro and has one daughter, Jacqueline. She joined the revolution while living with her sister Minerva because she wanted to feel worthy of Leandro. María Teresa matures into a strong revolutionary woman.
Minerva: The third Mirabal sister, and certainly the most headstrong. She is quite intent on law school as a young girl, and succeeds in completing it as an adult, although her license to practice is withheld by Trujillo as revenge. She has a brief romance with the revolutionary leader "Lio" before she meets Manolo in law school (also a revolutionary), and marries him. She has one daughter, Minou, and one son, Manolito.
Patria: The oldest of the Mirabal sisters, she is very religious. While looking for her calling from God, she instead finds her husband, Pedrito, whom she marries at age 16. Her faith wavers intensely as a young woman. She takes the fetal death of her third child as a punishment from God, which drives her further into a religious depression. She later regains her faith on a pilgrimage to Higuey that she takes with her mother and sisters. She has three children: Nelson, Noris, and Raul Ernesto. She is also a revolutionary, starting a Christian revolutionary group and merging it with her sister Minerva's revolutionary group.
Sinita: Minerva's good friend, whom she met at Inmaculada Catholic School for Girls. She later goes to Santo Domingo and becomes a revolutionary, just like Minerva. All the men in Sinita's' family were killed by Trujillo, the last when she was a young girl, anchoring her deep-seated hatred of Trujillo.
Rufino de la Cruz: The Mirabals' driver whenever they rented a car to go over the mountains to visit their husbands in prison, he was very loyal to the "butterflies", and they trusted him wholeheartedly. He was murdered along with the Mirabal girls. He has a wife and one child.
Reception
The book was nominated for the 1994 National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
.
The Port Washington School District in Port Washington, NY banned this book because it has a detailed diagram depicting how to construct a bomb. "We believe that the purpose of education is to expose students to all areas of reality so that we can make our own judgments. Isn't that why we are able to read Romeo and Juliet without committing suicide, or The Lord of the Flies without being violent? We should not ban a powerful piece of literature just because of a diagram." stated a New York Times opinion piece written by two Schreiber High School students where the book was banned.
In the Time of the Butterflies has won its spot as "The BIG READ" selection (National Endowment for the Arts) and a "Readers Round Table" (Algonquin)
Connection to historical events
The idea behind In the Time of the Butterflies originated in the 1960s when author Julia Alvarez was in the Dominican Republic. The Mirabal sisters had been murdered just three months after their father got involved with the underground against Trujillo.A motif of the novel is the ruinous effect that dictatorship can have on a nation and its citizens, emotionally and physically. Over his 30-year reign, Trujillo killed 300,000 Haitians. One of the focuses of the novel was his agenda to kill or eliminate blacks who occupy one-third of the Island of Hispanola, or Haiti, while the Dominican Republic, which occupies two-thirds of the area of Hispanola, contains a population of 75% mixed background.