In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

There she meets Manolo (another revolutionary) and gets married. Papá is eventually released, and Minerva meets Trujillo again for another battle of wills.įour years later Papá dies, and Minerva goes to law school. Minerva is asked to have a “private conference” with Trujillo, but she refuses. The next day Papá is arrested and taken in for questioning. Papá gets invited to a party thrown by Trujillo, and there Trujillo tries to seduce Minerva, while she tries manipulate him into letting her go to law school. One day Minerva discovers that Papá has a mistress and three illegitimate daughters. Dedé settles for marrying her cousin Jaimito, and Virgilio is driven by the Trujillo regime into exile. This shakes her faith, and she is especially affected by a portrait of Trujillo located next to one of Jesus.ĭedé becomes infatuated with Virgilio Morales, a young Communist intellectual, but Virgilio and Minerva end up dating instead. She marries a farmer named Pedrito at age sixteen, and has a son Nelson and a daughter Noris, but her next baby is stillborn. Patria is the most religious sister, and she wants to become a nun until she discovers her own sexuality. Minerva watches Trujillo seduce and abandon a girl at her school, Lina Lovatón. Minerva convinces Papá to allow them to go to a Catholic school, and there she meets Sinita, a girl whose family was killed by Trujillo. The story shifts between the four sisters from 1943 to their deaths in 1960: Dedé’s memories, Minerva’s point of view, Patria’s point of view, and entries from María Teresa’s diaries. In 1994 Dedé talks to an interviewer about her sisters, and her narrative is interrupted with memories.

The dead sisters are known as the “butterflies,” and they are martyrs and national heroes. In 1994, Dedé Mirabal lives in the house where her three sisters used to live.

The novel takes place in the Dominican Republic, both in 1994 and under the Trujillo regime.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez