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In The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

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Culture of the Dominican Republic Compared to In the Time of the Butterflies
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez is a novel about four sisters and their journey fighting for themselves and their country. The book all started after an interviewer showed up to one sister, Dedé, for her and her sister’s story. The reason being because Dedé is the only surviving sister from a car accident that took the lives of her sisters, Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa. They all had a normal life, until they convinced their Papa to allow them to go to Inmaculada, a Catholic school located in the capital of the Dominican Republic. This is where they began learning about the Dictator, Trujillo. The sister met one girl who had her family murdered …show more content…

Julia Alvarez uses In the Time of the Butterflies as a great channel to show feminine freedom. Although women can be seen as inferior to men and experience many hardships, over the course of the novel the women see more independence. Darren Broome analyzes Julia Alvarez’s use of females, and their prescription throughout the novel. Broome is currently a professor at Gordon College teaching French and Spanish. He has a PhD in Romantic Languages from the University of Alabama. He also holds a Masters of Arts degree and a B.B.A in International Business from various colleges. When he conducts research it is normally in the area of Contemporary Latin American literature, Contemporary Peninsular literature, linguistics, and foreign language pedagogy. In Broome’s analysis of Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies he says “Alvarez undoubtedly “defies convention” as she constructs the female body as a vehicle for empowerment, voice, and ultimately, change (2).” There are many ways in which Alvarez uses her book to show women's accreditation. One way is simply through the point of view she chooses to use. Most of the sister’s are speaking in first person, and we are able to read their thoughts. Their thoughts can be free flowing instead of censored. Another way is pregnancy. Alvarez is showing the power in which the female body holds, the ability to create life. Also, through the novel experiencing love stories, marriages, and hardships each sister goes through. The way Julia Alvarez knows females have this type of fight and determination in them is because she is one herself. She has also been through her fair share of hardships and life experiences that led her to be prosperous in writing and expand her knowledge. Silvio Sirias is a California native who immigrated to Nicaragua at age eleven, but then returned to the United States to attend college. He graduated from the

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The narrator recalls feeling trapped in her daily life, “I felt trapped in a world I could never escape. Confined to mediocracy, a pale, thin, overprotected girl...at the McCoy I became like my mother, a new person…,” (Chavez, 1999, pg. 256). She became a woman who, “Felt mature, comfortable with myself, more alive, not exhausted and frustrated by a life nearly over,” (Chavez, 1999, pg. 258), where being around new people allowed her to be the person dreamed of becoming, where she and her sister Margo both longed for freedom. At the hotel, they also stayed with their mother’s younger sister, Chita, “Rooms where shared by two sets of sisters, one younger the other much older... both groups sought respite from intense summer…,” (Chavez, 1999, pg. 255).

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Whether the books were fact or fiction Julia Alvarez expressed her life experiences of having to be constantly on the go and her struggles and a young Dominican

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The novel, In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez, tells the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. All four sisters take turns narrating the novel, making them each the protagonists of their chapters, but overall, Dede is the main character throughout the story. She is the second-oldest sister, the one who keeps the shelves stacked neatly, the one who can read and write. Dede is also the only sister who didn't join the revolution and wasn't killed in the 1960 ambush. She is the one who survives, which makes her the one to tell that story of her sister’s deaths.

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It’s the secret of Trujillo’” ( Alvarez 17). As the Trujillo’s dictatorship begins, people started to afraid of saying things because he killed every single individual who is bad mouthing about him. In fact, when Lina’s story was unfolded, Minerva said, “ Lina Lovaton had gotten pregnant in the big house. Trujillo’s wife Dona Maria had found out and gone after her with a knife. I guess there was a whole other pretty girl now taking up his attention” ( Alvarez 23).

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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.

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But their fear did not prevail their determination to illuminate their intention to bring down the regime. They faced their death because they knew they couldn’t give up easily. Although Trujillo did not lose his power right away, the death of the Mirabel’s sister did illuminate their cause. The determination and their gender was the main reason why Trujillo, felt

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Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies is a work of historical fiction set in the Dominican Republic that focuses on the four Mirabal sisters who bond together to rebel against the corrupt leader of their country, Rafael Trujillo. The four Mirabal sisters, Patria, Dedé, Minerva, and María Teresa form closer relationships with each other as they figure out a way to bring down the tyranny of Rafael Trujillo. Although they have a mutual goal, each of the Mirabal sisters has different feelings and thoughts throughout this time period. The theme of coming-of-age and identify is best exemplified through the character of María Teresa, known as Mate, through the ways she matures throughout the novel and becomes her own person who stands up for what she believes in.

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This story in its universality usually negates the women’s experience, Pérez argues that through the deconstruction of the historiography at play, history can be posed through a feminist lense, which includes rather than negates the perspectives, views, and adversities of women throughout history. Within her argument she also poses several sub arguments aimed at forcing the reader to think outside of the basic lines that surround Chicano/a history. She argues that the use of binaries can no longer be used as modes to determine whether or not someone is a friend or an enemy. She also argues that society has yet to reach a post colonial era based on the simple fact that in order to become a post colonial society, there was be a decolonization of the object, in this case women, to become the decolonial subject. This Pérez states will finally allow society to enter

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What did Trujillo do that people didn’t like?Well for example sinita wanted to shoot Trujillo with the bow and arrow because he did bad things to Sinitas family member. Also it seemed like Trujillo was had unequal rights to women in the country because Maria Teresa was talking about Trujillo and his unequal rights” it 's about time we women had a voice running in this country”and it meant Trujillo didn’t like women to go beyond themselves in the country. Trujillo really did have much power and many people just wanted equal rights over it. For example Maria teresa wanted to have power as a women and go to law school and some day make a change around the

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Minerva’s central role in the revolution separates her from her family, and she has to sacrifice so much to save her country from Trujillo, the corrupt president of the Dominican Republic. This leaves her missing her family and wanting nothing more but to be the loving mother to her kids. Although Minerva is tired of leading a double life, she forces herself to confront the inner conflicts that trouble her. Sometimes, she would “lie in bed, thinking, ‘You must gather up the broken threads and tie them together” (267).

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As Trujillo implies that if they express their thoughts they will be killed is also foreshadowing the death of the Mirabal sisters later in the

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She used shorter sentences and simple vocabulary in order to make it easier for her audience to understand. She also demonstrates that simple sentences can have a more profound meaning because of the events leading up to them. Moreover, she uses imagery by using details such as "hot

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Lola takes advantage of her deteriorating mother whose illness represents the declining hold of the norms over Lola. Since her mom “will have trouble lifting her arms over her head for the rest of her life,” Lola is no longer afraid of the “hitting” and grabbing “by the throat” (415,419). As a child of a “Old World Dominican Mother” Lola must be surrounded by traditional values and beliefs that she does not want to claim, so “as soon as she became sick” Lola says, “I saw my chance and I’m not going to pretend or apologize; I saw my chance and I eventually took it” (416). When taking the opportunity to distinguish herself from the typical “Dominican daughter” or ‘Dominican slave,” she takes a cultural norm like long hair and decides to impulsively change it (416). Lola enjoyed the “feeling in [her] blood, the rattle” that she got when she told Karen to “cut my hair” (418).

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n the day to day life there are many parts that make me wonder, The world goes on with many aspects that are meant to unknown but in the House Taken Over by Julio Cortazar there is far too much to ponder about. In the story the narrator lives in a very large old house which was passed down in through the family. The narrator lives in the house with his sister Irene, she enjoys knitting. The siblings live a very repetitious life, with little conflicts. Throughout the whole story aspects that are most wordersome include the constant refusal to anonymous ‘they”, why the siblings spend most of their day cleaning and the mystery of the very close relationship between the two.

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The youngest daughter commits suicide over Pepe el Romano, her love interest who is engaged to her older sister. This story collection was finished just before Lorca’s

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