In the Time of the Butterflies Group

Question:

meetmeinstlouis
meetmeinstlouis
Student
High School - 10th Grade

In the book In The Time Of The Butterflies, can anyone explain to me exactly what happens on the retreat when the bombs go off?

I don't understand who's being bombed and why or the significance of the guy who dies.

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Posted by meetmeinstlouis on Tuesday February 19, 2008 at 9:50 PM and tagged with bomb, fourteenth of february, in the time of the butterflies, plot, retreat.

Answers:


  1. dymatsuoka

    eNotes Editor

    On February fourteenth, the date of the bombing, Dominican exiles from Cuba attempted an invasion of the Dominican Republic to aid the revolutionaries against the dictator Trujillo.  The invasion failed, and the exiles, along with rebel soldiers, were decimated by government troops and bombs in the mountains near the retreat house.  The young soldier who is killed before Patria's eyes is a member of the invading  band.  Patria, fiercely protective of her family and home, has long resisted joining the revolution, but when she sees the boy cut down, she realizes a kinship with a larger family, the "human family", and recognizes that he, to is "one of (hers)".  The significance of the boy's death is that it galvanizes Patria to join her sisters in the rebellion against Trujillo's brutal dictatorship (Chapter 8).

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/time-butterflies/historical-context

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    Posted by dymatsuoka on Wednesday February 20, 2008 at 10:52 AM