The Lives of the Mirabel Sisters in the Novel In the Time of the Butterflies

Julia Alvarez painted a beautiful illustration of a peaceful family living in the Dominican Republican, “sitting in the cool darkness under the anacahuita tree in the front yard, in the rockers, telling stories, drinking guanabana juice” (Alvarez 8) but, who would have known that “only one [would be] left to tell their story” (Alvarez 10).

Alvarez reincarnated the Mirabel sisters through her vivid imagination in this historical fiction account of their lives under Trujillo’s thirty-one year regime. In her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez created fictional biographies out of the Mirabals personal and domestic lives to emphasize the destructive power of a dictatorial government and the radical changes it can bring about in people.

Patria, the oldest and the most religious of the Mirabal sisters, underwent a miscarriage and lost her son, Nelson, and her husband, Pedrito, because of their arrest by Trujillo’s personal assassin force, the SIM. Even though Patria stayed true to her religious faith, she ended up losing “[her] home, [her] husband, [her] son, [her] peace of mind…[she] was crazy with grief, all right” (Alvarez 200).

Eventually, even Patria is forced to acknowledge the fact that that even God can be undermined by the vicious power of a tyrannical government.

Probably the least expected outcome took place when Patria decides to join the revolutionary movement “after witnessing a hideous government massacre of peasants” (Martinez 128). The repercussion of the incident near the battleground was Patria’s first “fight” (Alvarez 162) with God when she says, “I’m not going to sit back and watch my babies dies, Lord, even if that’s what You in Your great wisdom decide” (Alvarez 162).

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By crafting Patria as a virtuous, motherly young lady who transcends into becoming an active revolutionary, Alvarez made the experiences that the Mirabals faced much more relatable to the readers.

Thus, she used fiction “as an instrument to decodify a tyranny’s hidden and manifest tentacles” (Stavans) and elucidated the effects of Trujillo’s despotic regime on a much more extensive level.

Living in a “misogynistic society” (Stavans) where the women hold minor standing in society, Minerva was the rebellious one in the family. She believed that “…women had to come out of the dark ages” (Alvarez 51) to exorcise Trujillo’s “phallocentric regime” (Stavans). To ensure that she achieved her ambition of going to college to become a lawyer, Minerva gambled with Trujillo. However, Trujillo lied to her and crushed Minerva’s dream to become a lawyer, in attempt to chastise her for humiliating him in public.

No matter how many obstacles Trujillo set up, Minerva overcame them all, ultimately to become known as La Mariposa, or The Butterfly, as a symbol of freedom and justice. Alvarez thereby used “her beauty, her public rebellions, her conspicuous intelligence, and her leadership in the underground movement” (Felty 126) to accentuate her role “in [the] front of the crowd” (Martinez 128). Nonetheless, she had become a fallen butterfly against the power of an autocrat. Trujillo’s secret police force, Military Intelligence Service (SIM) arrested her entire family-her father, her husband, her sisters, her nephews and confined them in prison for months, where she slowly deteriorated mentally and physically.

After being released from prison, she returned to live with her mother, struggling to maintain her outward composure and strength—she “hid [her] anxieties and gave everyone a bright smile” (Alvarez 259). Alvarez used Minerva’s character to depict Trujillo’s regime as an “oppressing power” (Stavans) focused on “destroying human happiness” (Stavans).

Maria Teresa, or Mate, “the youngest [Mirabal sister] and least political or even spiritual” (Martinez 128), ended up joining the revolutionary group along with her sisters, even though her reason was “largely because of her feelings for her eventual husband, Leandro Guzmán” (Felty 126). Mate’s innocence was killed through Leandro’s arrest and her experiences in the prison and La 40, the notorious torture chamber. Mate’s first experience in prison was atrocious—she was put in the cell with burglars and murderers; she was shocked, beaten, and whipped to convince her husband to work for Trujillo.

Mate’s experience with violence transformed her from an innocent child, who thought the “president was like God, watching over everything [she] did” (Alvarez 39), to a compelling adult, whose world now “looks just a little different” (Alvarez 39). Alvarez makes Mate narrate her story in short journal entries to show her “youthful impetuousness” (Felty 126).

Once Mate was arrested and exposed to “the reality of the prisoners’ harrowing situation and the strength it takes to endure in this environment” (Felty 126), she became a more mature and potent character, as she began to “comprehend the true repercussions of her actions” (Felty 126). She was not the innocent, romantic young girl who believed in love charms and imitated whatever her sisters did anymore.

Unlike the other Mirabal sisters, Dedé was the only member of the family that was alive after the end of the Trujillo regime—left alone to deal with the trauma and regret for almost three decades. Alvarez portrayed Dedé as the apprehensive sister who warned the other three Mirabal sisters to beware of Trujillo’s “overwhelming…controlling…overarching” (Stavans) power. She wrote Dedé’s vignettes in present tense to make her serve as the “backbone” (Stavans) of the novel.

It also served to elevate Dedé’s prominence as the only surviving sister by making her the main narrator of the story. The fear that was created through Dede’s lingering tone served to accentuate the fear that was created by Trujillo’s rule, “destroying human happiness-so overarching [was] the dictator” (Stavans). Similarly, Dedé also represented “the failures of courage that kept so many people from opposing Trujillo” (Felty 127). She was not brave enough to fight with her sisters and thus, never got involved with their revolutionary activities. However, her living became her “martyrdom…to be alive without” (Alvarez 308) her family.

Patria’s loss of faith, Minerva’s oppressed dream, Mate’s lost innocence, and Dede’s agony all reinforced Alvarez’s belief that a tyrannical regime destroyed the people’s lives and forever changed their personalities. Alvarez “[grounded] her depictions in her characters’ daily lives and loves…[as] a means of understanding the sisters’ rebellions” (Felty 125). Julia Alvarez “beautifully [crafted] anecdotes interstitched to create a patchwork quilt of memory and ideology” (Stavans) in her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies.