Summary Of In The Time Of The Butterflies By Julia Alvarez

“Sometimes you have to do something wrong for a higher good” (43), these words are spoken by Minerva in the book In the Time of the Butterflies. All of the characters in In the Time of the Butterflies were entrapped by the dictatorial rule of Rael Trujillo but even though one may be scared to, they sacrifice themselves for their family. In the Time of the Butterflies is well known as a fictional novel that takes place during the real historical period of the Trujillo Era in the Dominican Republic. These qualities have helped reader learned more about the Dominican Republic during that time along with the brave action of the Mirabal sisters. Julia Alvarez was born on March 27, 1950 in New York. Alvarez’s parents met in the United States, where

The resulting work is historical fiction, a recreation of the lives of three Dominican sisters—Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa Mirabal— who were murdered for their attempts to overthrow Trujillo the same year Alvarez's family fled to the United States. The Maribal sisters are heroic women known by their revolutionary name Las Mariposas (The Butterflies). The core of the book is made up of chronological reminiscences by the murdered sisters from childhood to the time of their brutal demise. “The Mirabals are a traditional provincial Dominican family, portrayed in clichéd fashion—a middle¬class rural clan anchored by the inevitably philandering but supportive patriarch and the warm, caring and wise mother”

Alvarez, an Americanized Dominican woman who wants to write something about the Mirabals and is looking for information (Echevarria). Using diaries, letters, and other data, she creates strong, believable characters who portray not only the truths of their own identities but the wounds, of Many which invade their tender lives and eventually destroy them. Known as "Las Mariposas," or "The Butterflies," the women's political struggle is celebrated in parts of Latin America. The book is also about the fourth sister, Dedé, who survived because she stayed home the night her sisters were killed, and to whom Alvarez dedicated her work. Dede’s recollections and musings open and close the novel, nicely framing the action. “.. Julia Alvarez has again displayed her fine talent as a novelist. Especially noteworthy is her ability to maintain an equilibrium between the political and the human, the tragic and the lyrical”