In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez Shows the Lives of Sister

When he got sick trying to protect their land, his Abuelita asked to take him home but refused and answered, “no, no, no. I want to help Mami with her dream house” (128). Carlos had wanted to prove to his mother that he wants her to stay badly, even if it could cost him his life.

In the novel, “Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen” Reymundo Sanchez, talks about a woman’s perspective of her rough childhood experiences and how it led up to her being affiliated in one of the most notorious gangs in America, the Latin Kings. Sonia Rodriguez, was born into a low social economic class with very minimal opportunities. Not to mention, her household was not an ordinary house hold. In fact, it was a household filled with violence, drugs, no sense of love from her family members and abusive with no expectations of prosperity. Sonia was five years old when she was already having doubts about whether her mother loved her. At such a tender age, this little girl is having these thoughts about her mother not loving her demonstrates she would receive little or no love from her family. In fact, Sonia turned to receiving good academics to attempt and please her mom for love in return. This eventually fails, leading to her never getting that love from not just her mom, but the family. Sonia was viewed more as a scapegoat to the house hold then a family member. She was excessively punished for no reason with no trust from none of her family members. If something was occurring in the family for instance, her sister going out late or money missing she would the one to blame and severely punished, “She swore she hadn’t stolen from either Juan or her mother and continued to maintain her innocence even through the beatings she received whenever there was missing money”

Sofía attempts to take hold of her life by being sexuality active. In How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, Sofía is said to be the one who has “non-stop boyfriends”, and is always the one that the others go to for advice on men. This may come as a surprise considering she is the youngest. This is very much against her parents’ beliefs. They want their daughters to stay pure and celibate. After Carlos finds love letters exchanged between Sofía and her boyfriend, Sofía runs away to be with the man of her dreams. This causes Sofía’s relationship with her father to significantly weaken. Sofía engages in premarital sex and becomes pregnant with a child.

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”.

Dedé was afraid of living without her sisters, as she saw them as the source of her strength, her courage. Instead of giving up, though, her love keeps her going. Her love for her children, her sisters, and her sisters’ children creates in Dedé a new form of strength. Dedé shows courage when she raises her dead sisters’ children as her own. In honoring their memory, the last Mariposa becomes the “oracle” to the world, telling the story of the

In the fabricated novel In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, the author illuminates details of a revolution and the family of the Mirabal sisters. Alvarez’s fictionalized account of the Dominican Republic’s revolution and the Mirabal’s personal lives paints us a vivid image of the events during Trujillo’s dictatorship. We get personally touched by each of the characters in the novel, but Minerva Mirabal, the third sister, stands out with a true heart and spirit of the resistance. Minerva Mirabal has the strongest mind set apart from her sisters and gets greatly invested in the revolution. Her association with the rebel cause highlights the list of the events the sisters endure during their lives. Minerva’s personality is

I know that if I found out that my father or stepfather had another family I would be very hurt and angry. But to know that she actually wanted to help take care of her half sisters was really amazing to see. But I guess since they were all to close the same age and were all going through the exact same thing she was going through it was probably easier to get along with them. Minerva was really mad at her father, and that is completely understandable. What gave Minerva the courage to go help her dad’s other family. Why did she want to go help

Minerva found

For example “I know the rumor that got started once I’d been living at home a few years” (Alvarez 84). Real people have to deal with rumors sometimes. I strongly believe that Minerva is like a real person but in a book. End of the chapter, the whole family goes to a party that was hosted by Trujillo and by challenging Trujillo was slapping Trujillo doing the dance. “It is raining when we leave the capital, a drizzle that builds to a steady downpour by the time we hit Villa Altagracia.” (Alvarez 115). After few weeks Minerva and her mother have to apologize to Trujillo. But after that challenge towards Trujillo, this chapter affects Minerva a lot and how she discovers her own

is an only child; she is rich and would be a good catch for any man of

colleagues would view her as weak and she wanted the respect of her peers. She was also

she knows that they can not be together for it would be a hard life

to her career in the future since it was the technique used to get a

dumped him when he proved to be of no use to her in the quest for the better life. As Dreiser

In Julia Alvarez’s novel, In the Time of Butterflies, different types of figures of speech were used to help the main idea come across. In conjunction, Julia Alvarez also organized the novel in a way that all four sisters have a chance to tell their story. Creating the novel in this way heavily affected how the story came out. If these special effects were not incorporated into the novel, the story would not have the same gut wrenching effect.