Summary Of Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez is the inspiring story about the four Mirabal sisters who grew up in the dictatorship of the Dominican Republic. The novel depicts the events that leads up to the deaths of three of the sisters: Patria, Maria Teresa, and Minerva and shows how the remaining sibling, Dedé, deals with both grief and regret. Alvarez explores the dangerous history of the Hispanic Caribbean through fiction in hopes that her readers will be able to truly grasp the impact the lives of the Mirabals had on the Dominican Republic.

While many different topics are discussed in the book, the violation of human rights and political unrest is what drives the plot of the book. During the Trujillo era of the Dominican Republic, Rafeal

Maria Teresa ended up losing her baby after the guards tortured her in front of her husband Leandro, in order to get information about the rebellion from him. Apart from the torture, the female prisoners were starved, beaten, and many were sexually assaulted. It was not until the rumors that the OAS (Organization of the American States) was investigating Trujillo for human rights violations that their spirits were lifted. When the OAS finally arrived at the prison, the guards chose Maria Teresa to be interviewed by them believing that she would not go against them. Knowing that the guards had bugged the interview room, the Mirabals hid a note in Maria Teresa's hair that described the awful treatment they had received, and Maria Teresa had successfully passed the note to the interviewer which resulted in the release of all the female prisoners. Once out of prison, Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa drove across a mountain pass to visit their husbands in prison, but they are ambushed and murdered under the request of Trujillo. Their deaths were stage to look like a car accident and Dedé was forced to live on and tell the world of how Trujillo destroyed their