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In The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

969 Words4 Pages

In the “Time of the Butterflies” is a hidden propaganda novel during the cold war when Catholicism and the western world heavily opposed the evils of Communism. In her novel Julia Alvarez convinces us otherwise through depiction of an atrocious dictatorship and exceptional everyday freedom fighters. Through this she develops a truth to our understanding of an enemy, and highlights the faults in our own faith.
In pg.53, the Catholic Church is in full support of the dictator and paints him as a holy saint, a Jesus Christ figure. “She must have caught me gazing at our picture of the Good Shepherd, talking to his lambs. Beside him hung the required portrait of El Jefe, touched up to make him look better than he was.” The Catholic Church represents Western Ideology in the time of the cold war, they actively fought against the Communists even at the expense of the innocent and truth, in the many other cases like this one in the Dominican Republic. Painting an illegitimate figure into the society of those faithful should dilute the organization’s worthiness of claiming a connection to the higher power. However, the Catholic Church isn’t weakened, it has remained in its high state of power even after false prophets and manipulation. With this in mind it 's a subtle hint to question if our blind faith is truly legitimate in the eyes of a monotheistic entity.
Just as history depicts, “In the Time of the Butterflies” makes an analogy to the cold war between the USA and the USSR, The

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