This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. At school, one of the sisters, 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. The sisters make a political commitment to overthrow the Trujillo regime. They are harassed, persecuted, and imprisoned, all while their family suffers retaliation from the Military Intelligence Service (SIM).
As vengeance for their political activities, Trujillo orders three of the sisters be killed on Puerto Plata Road, with their driver ear Rufino, while returning from visiting their husbands in jail. The women and
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She is not as certain about the revolution as her sisters, and feels weaker because of that fact. She has mixed feelings about joining the revolution, so she doesn 't. She uses her husband, Jaimito, as the reason she doesn 't officially join. He doesn 't want her involved in the revolution, and the conflict almost destroys their marriage. She is constantly worrying about her sisters, telling them they 'll be killed. She has children, all boys, Enrique, Rafael, and David. In the end she is the only survivor of her four sisters.
María Teresa: The youngest of the four Mirabal sisters, she is very materialistic. She marries Leandro and has one daughter, named Jacqueline. She joined the revolution while she is living with her sister Minerva. She joined because she wanted to feel worthy of Leandro.
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 miscarriage of her third child as God 's punishment towards her, 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
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Show MoreMinerva initially resents Carmen and her children, but soon warms to them. Minerva can empathize with these girls and connect how much an education helped her and how much an education would help them. Minerva and her mother go to the Office of Missing Persons to report the disappearance of her father. Before them in line is a man who struggles with reading and writing, so Minerva spends time helping him fill out his forms. In an attempt to evade the government, the man named each of his sons the same, so Minerva makes up different names for his his children, and defends him against a guard who ridiculed the foreign sounding names.
In In The Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez utilizes the power struggle between Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic in 1994 and the Mirabal sisters, who try to overthrow the government, as a means to demonstrate the power struggle the people faced during this time period of Trujillo’s reign. Trujillo is a man who thrives on power and put spies in place to make sure that none of the people were even hinting towards a revolt. When Papa makes a snide comment about Trujillo being a female ruler, in that moment, “the dark fills with spies who are paid to hear things and report them down at Security” (Alvarez 10). This was the beginning of the end of three out of the four Mirabal sisters. Trujillo posts his face on every newspaper, book cover, and anything that people commonly use in order to promote how great he is.
Many other altercations occurred that added to the chaos of the family including, Tita’s oldest sister moving away and marrying a solider and becoming a general during the Revolutionary War, her other sister going out of her way to marry Tita’s love, Pedro. This began to trigger further issues dealing with the closeness of their family, “Generations of families live in the same neighborhoods, grandparents, parents and children may live in the same household, this reflects the dedication and loyalty of Mexican families” (Gómez). It is a normal traditional thing for Mexican families to remain all together into their elder years, for the most part. Through all the tension and differences within the family they began to stray away from each other in hope to leave it all in the
From the moment that the Dominican republic was free from Trujillo’s dictatorship, contrasting viewpoints have come up regarding the sacrifices of the Mirabal sisters. While some argue that the Mirabal sisters sacrifices were not beneficial and worthwhile to the revolution because it resulted in the orphaning of their children and three young lives were lost. Others argue that the Mirabal sisters sacrifices were effective for the revolution since it changed the future of their country. I deem the sisters sacrifices are justifiable because their sacrifices had an important purpose. Isn’t it true that Trujillo's was absolutely in power for 31 years however, because of the three young sisters his cruel regime ended.
Trujillo gets worried when he learns about the 14th of June Movement because he knows that the goal of the movement is to overthrow or kill him. One by one, he starts jailing members of the movement, as well as ransacking or destroying their homes. At Patria’s house, Trujillo has the SIM tear “...the house apart, hauling away the doors, windows, the priceless mahogany beams of Pedrito’s old family rancho” (Alvarez 192). The way that he messes with those involved in the movement is cruel. After having their homes ransacked, Trujillo jails only the Mirabal husbands, which makes the sisters think they are safe.
Ms. Cassel family consists her mother, Jean Cassel who is 65-year-old, her oldest sister, Lorraine who is 32-year-old and works as a cook at a local retirement home, and lastly, her older sister Frances who is 29-year-old who is a single parent with a six-month-old
Alvarez and her family have a lot of trauma considering there lives in the dominican republic and living under the dictator,through it all alvarez's parents raised a daughter who would share their story in a fashionable matter that told the story how it was.
Pedro was the seventh child besides all of his thirteen siblings. Benilda was physically abused by a sex worker and clients. He was kicked out of the house by his mom after having sexual intercourse with his younger sister. Lopes then ran away from this and went to Bogota. He became homeless along with many other young children, they were known as the “ gaminies”.
Over the years of fitting in, she enjoyed her independence but believed it “…didn’t have to be an exile…” (Alvarez 1304) from her native ways. In regaining her identity, she believes she must reconnect with her favorite childhood “…antojos, guavas…” (Alvarez 1300). In finding and eating the guavas, it is her way of reconnecting with her family and calling back the memories of the once Dominican
Gabriel, a vaquero, who exposes the love of the llano, expresses his way of life and freedom. Their kids, three eldest sons, two daughters, and youngest son Antonio, the protagonist, become
In the Dominican Republic, women were expected to go by what their husbands and fathers said. Women portrayed to have less power and authority than men. In “In the Time of the Butterflies”, the Mirabal sisters showed something very differently, instead they demonstrated the equal authority they have with their husbands. Their power challenged gender limitations that were forced on them by their patriarchal Dominican culture. Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa all were sisters who became involved in political movements against President Trujillo.
Alvarez unfolds how Trujillo impacted her mother in a chronological order in a revealing way. Alvarez explains at first that her mother adores Trujillo. It was the way of life for the Dominican Republic people. She was raised to be this way in a life of her eyes revolving around this dictator who showed to be really good, but was not good at all. An example of a false representation of the dictator is Stalin or Hitler.
Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies is a work of historical fiction which is about four sisters who fight the oppressive leader, Rafael Trujillo, in the Dominican Republic. Dede, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Patria Mirabal are the four sisters who go against Trujillo, that are the epitome of a person’s courage, faith, compassion, and growth. These sisters come together and use these exemplary characteristics to fight an oppressive regime. The theme of the courage and strength to stand up to tyranny in In the Time of the Butterflies is best exemplified through the character of Minerva Mirabel, through her courage to stand up to Rafael Trujillo.
As a reader just being introduced to the character Patria with this quote you can clearly tell Julia Alvarez’s intent on how we look at Patria. The author intends to show and describe the character as a
The abusive husband is Juan Pedro. Juan Pedro wants to take Cleofilas and move to Seguin, Texas and start a new life there. He can’t get a decent job and they live in a low-end home. He takes his frustration out on Cleofilas. He beats her, cheats on her, and yells at her for things that are not her fault.