Summary Of In The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

In the Dominican Republic, women are expected to be confined to their own gender spheres. In Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies the four Mirabal Sisters defy the traditional view of women by embodying freedom, rebellion, and independence. The Mirabal Sisters live in a patriarchal society fighting for what they truly believe in, at the same time conserving their roles as loving women with families. Alvarez successfully challenged the traditional view of women by portraying themselves as “butterflies”. Julia Alvarez is able to not only show the sisters as martyrs, but as true women by showing their personal lives while fighting against Trujillo. Each of the sisters displays a defiance of traditional views in their own way. The so

Women at this time were fighting to get out of a patriarchal society and have political action in their countries. They didn’t want to be subject to men, or confined to their gender spheres remaining in their households. The Mirabal Sisters greatly portrayed this. They were assassinated by dictator Rafael Trujillo and are now symbols of martyrdom in the struggle against the dictator (Robinson). The infatuating fight of the Mirabal Sisters began the end of Trujillo’s dictatorship and a new era in the Dominican Republic.

Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies is a novel that greatly portrayed the story of the Mirabal Sisters and how they defied traditional women roles in a confined society. The Mirabal Sisters were four: Patria, Dede, Minerva, and Maria Teresa, consequently. Even though not all formed part of the revolutionary actions, all are exemplary figures of how women should not be limited by society’s obsolete perspectives. The four sisters are referred as “butterflies” due to their evolution throughout this period in the Dominican Republic and how at the end they were able to embody freedom and

I did automatically like a shoot inching its way towards the light” (Alvarez 44). Patria convinced her father to let her attend to a convent, following her religious beliefs. This was common female stereotype at the time. Women were supposed to follow social roles that did not expose them as much, being a nun would conform to the norms of the time. With time, Patria surpasses her phase of becoming a nun and marries Pedrito at age sixteen. At the beginning Patria is not directly involved in revolutionary actions. When she is expecting her last son, Patria has a conversation with Minerva in which it is revealed how she is committed to the revolution in spirit, but not in direct action: “I knew then I had brought it up as a way of letting her know I was with her – if only in spirit” (Alvarez 155). After witnessing the massacre in Constanza, Patria decides to join the revolution. She became involved as a direct consequence of an event. It even got to the point that in her house the 14th of June Movement was founded: “The fourteenth of June: how could I ever forget that day!” (Alvarez 160). She could not stand the thought of not being part in a revolution where people were innocently murdered and hurt. Hence, Patria became what is known in the novel as a “butterfly”. Patria was able to defy the stereotype of women by