The Butterflies Characterization

To live life as if you will die tomorrow is the key to a happy and inspired life. The Time of the Butterflies written by Julia Alvarez is a book about the Mirabal family and their fight for freedom. While all of the sister are off fighting a revolution against the tyrant Trujillo, one sister, Dedé is stuck at home. In the end of the book freedom is reached, but not before three of the sisters, Maria Teresa, Patria, & Minerva also known as The Butterflies are murdered in a “car accident”. Dedé must listen to all the stories of their last day, and then tell many stories of the sister to more people. Their sister Dedé is the only survivor of the sisters, burying them all. In The Time of the Butterflies, Alvarez uses characterization of Dedé to

Dedé must now tell the stories of her sisters to anyone that asks. Through telling the stories of her sisters Dedé continues to learn about her courageous kin and their impressionable lives. Dedé begins to feel more and more brave, her and her sister Minerva and Manolo used to play a game called “Dark Passages” as children. The dare was to walk past the railing into the pitch blackness of the night, Minerva would take off into it and win every time. Now as Dedé is standing there alone while Minerva’s daughter Minou is on the phone, Dedé narrates “I walk off the porch into the grass, so as not to overhear her conversation, or so I tell myself. For a moment I want to disappear. My legs brushing fragrances off the vague bushes, the dark growing deeper as I walk away from the lights of the house.” (Alvarez 314) Dedé seems as if she is seriously understanding the lessons her sisters taught. “Away” to symbolizes how she is embracing life, she must control and use her courage to make her life important. “Deeper” exemplifies how she continues to turn towards the ways of thinking her siblings did, live for a deeper meaning. This situation is further evidence of Dedé understanding about living for a