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In the Time of the Butterflies
Julia Alvarez’s novel In the Time of Butterflies tells the story of the three Mirabal sisters: Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa. María Teresa, nicknamed Mate, is the youngest of the sisters....
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The text is rife with literary devices. It is ironic that the Mirabals find their revolutionary roots at a sheltered religious school, and that Minerva is allowed to go to law school, only to find...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
It's hard to do without knowing what you're looking for, but this page has character analysis, a couple of paragraphs for each sister.
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The answer can be seen if you look at the Contents page of this novel, which lays out the chapters and the novel's structure. Alvarez chooses to structure this wonderful account of the life of the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Minerva is the narrator of the novel. She knows that the dictator Rafael Trujillo demands absolute loyalty and subservience from every Dominican. In his thirty years in power he had built up a...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Dedé's father is a wealthy farmer and landowner who also runs a general store. Despite his wealth, Papa is actually quite a generous soul, which sets him apart from the economic and social elite...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The hair ribbon represents independence and hope. Maria Teresa wears a hair ribbon to give herself a sense of normality when she's in prison. Before her torture, they were just an accessory. Sor...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Maria Teresa writes, "I asked Minerva why she was doing such a dangerous thing. And then, she said the strangest thing. She wanted me to grow up in a free country. "'And it isn't that already?'...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Well, remember that in this novel the relationship between Minerva and Manolo changes as the action progresses. Their relationship doesn't really start off very well as Manolo is unfaithful to...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The unsettling realization about Virgilio, nicknamed Lio, that Dede comes to is that he is really a Communist. Lio is "a radical young man" who, for a period of time, was a close friend of the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
I am not sure what you mean by "better" but I will give it a shot. (I have included the eNotes link to Minerva's character analysis, just in case you hadn't seen it.) Minerva is the eldest of the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
It is important to remember that whilst this novel is based on historical events and real people who actually lived, breathed and died, this text is still a work of fiction. Alvarez herself...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Under house arrest, Minerva tries to settle her nerves and adjust to life back at home. She and her sisters can only leave the house with permission from Pena, a SIM guard, and regularly go only...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Probably the most notable difference between Dede and Minerva is in their personalities, especially as concerns their levels of assertiveness in making decisions. Minerva is adventurous and...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Dede' reflects on events from just after her sisters' deaths. The deaths have caused things to go out of control with respect to the attention it garners. Fela, the servant, erects a shrine and...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Alvarez does not frequently use rhyme, but she does often employ alliteration. She often combines alliterative sounds with clever metaphors, such as Dede who lives life in "little sips of...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Dede tends to be a follower rather than a leader, and a pacifist in her dealings with people, "the docile middle child, used to following the lead. . . .cheerful, compliant." As one might expect,...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Maria Teresa marries Leandro on Valentine's Day, 1958. In Chapter Six, Maria Theresa writes in her diary in 1946: I know the rumor that got started once I’d been living at home a few years. That...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In The Time of the Butterflies, the Dominican people experience Trujillo's abuse of power when they are forced to suffer through his unchallenged decisions. Early in the novel, Minerva learns...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Even in the opening chapter of this book, the fear that characters face through informants who might overhear a casual word spoken unthinkingly is reported and conveyed to the reader. Note how even...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
During her last year at Immaculada, Minerva befriends Hilda, a "really rude" young lady who "wears trousers and a beret slanted on her head like she is Michelangelo". Hilda lives in town but...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In Chapter 12 of The Time of the Butterflies, Minerva, Patria, and Mate are under house arrest with a Captain Pena supervising them. Hearing that OLSA has imposed sanctions, Dede warns her sisters...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In Chapter 6, Minerva discovers that her father has a mistress and four other daughters. She also finds that he has been hiding letters to her from Lio. When she confronts him, her father defends...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Your question identifies the way in which Maria Teresa differs from her other sisters. Perhaps, as befits her position as the baby of the family, her whimsical nature is part of her identity as the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The Mirabel sisters are faced with several conflicts throughout the novel. Internally each young woman struggles with becoming who she desires to be while remaining loyal to her family wanted her...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In Chapter 7, it is revealed that Papa has died and Minerva has gone to the University to study law, where she meets Manolo and becomes active in the underground. While visiting her, Mate begins...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In chapter four, the story shifts to Patria’s experiences and is told from her perspective. At school, the nuns note Patria’s religious devotion, and one encourages Patria to consider joining a...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Chapter 11 covers the time period from March to August, 1960 and is narrated by Mate. She and Minerva are in a cell with twenty-four women. The two sisters turn down the pardon that's offered to...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
I would say that one theme is authoritarianism. That's not a tough theme to explain. Trujillo is in control of a complete dictatorship and rules with an iron fist. That kind of government...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The Trujillo regime is a military dictatorship, and while the novel depicts its stanglehold on the country and the fear by which it rules, it more particularly depicts it as patriarchal--ruled by a...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In Dede's final chapter before the novel ends, she reflects on what has happened to her since 1960 and how, in many ways, she still bears the scars of her sisters' deaths and also the double-edged...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Minerva is the first sister to react to Trujillo's regime, causing the rest of her family to have to make a decision whether to get involved. She's rebellious, self-confident,...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The church finally takes a stand against Trujillo's regime after witnessing the way in which Trujillo ruthlessly bombs and kills his own people. In the novel, Patria witnesses this, and feels a...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Julia Alvarez's In the Time of Butterflies is an emotional history, rather than one of fact, involving the despotic reign of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic and the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The Mirabel sisters choose the butterfly, la mariposa, as their symbol because they see it as a symbol of freedom and independence, which is the goal of their struggle: independence for their...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Three of the Mirabal sisters, Minirva, Maria Teresa ("Mate"), and Patria are killed by forces loyal to Trujillo ("El Jefe"). The thugs run the sisters off the road and murder...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
'In The Time Of The Butterflies' is the story of the four Maribal sisters who bravely opposed the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic in the 1960's.Rafael Trujillo was assassinated in 1961;...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Minerva's chapters are as follows and here is a significant quote & analysis from each. Pages numbers will depend on whatever edition you have. (Mine is the Plume paperback edition. Those...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The first mention of any of the Mirabal sisters being referred to as a butterfly comes in Chapter Seven, which is narrated by Maria Teresa. She goes to stay with Minerva and Manolo, yet one night...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The Chapter you need to look at to find the moment of change for Patria that transforms her from a good, law abiding citizen who will not support the rebel movement to a woman who is willing to...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
This is a very important chapter for the development of the character of Maria Teresa, as we see her in prison and having to face the realities of punishment, abuse and torture. Based on this,...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
In Julia Alvarez's book, In the Time of Butterflies, there are several symbols. First, as noted in the title, butterflies are significant. (This supports the theme of "change and transformation.")...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
These two sisters are very important in this excellent novel that speaks of political repression and the battle of women to fight against it. Although there are some similarities between Dede and...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
The use of the moon symbolically seems to indicate the level of violence at each stage in this incredible novel. The moon seems to act as some kind of gauge of the level of safety or danger of the...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Minerva and Dede are both beautiful and intelligent women. Their personalities are vastly different, however. Minerva is outgoing and assertive, and chafes at the confines of home and family....
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In the Time of the Butterflies
One of Dede's weaknesses is her capitulation to the "rule" of men. Unlike Minerva, Dede believes in the authority of patriarchy. In Chapter Five, she disapproves of Minerva's crossing the line in...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
March, and throughout early spring, in the Southern United States, is the time in nature when butterflies emerge from their cocoons. In Alvarez's novel, the Mirabel's reach their full maturity in...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Perhaps the best quotes which characterize the differences between the brutal dictator and the freedom-loving Mirabal sisters are found in Chapter Six. Here, we witness the callousness of "El...
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Dede and Jaimito have three sons: Enrique, Rafael, and David.
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In the Time of the Butterflies
Ah, good question. The title comes from the code names used by the three Mirabal sisters. They were "las mariposas," which in English means "the butterflies." This book focuses on them and their...
