The Time Of The Butterflies by Julia Alvarez Book Review

The novel In The Time Of The Butterflies written by Julia Alvarez tells the story of 4 sisters in the Dominican Republic during the dictatorship of Trujillo. Life in the Dominican Republic in the mid 1900’s was not ideal. Dictator Rafael Trujillo had been in charge of the small country for years, and was slowly but effectively changing and controlling the lives of the people who lived there. Many movements throughout the years have tried to stop him, overthrow him, or just make themselves known to him, but none made as much of an impact as the Mirabal sisters, also known as the Mariposas. Although Trujillo was an extremely powerful dictator, the Mirabal sisters won their fight against him because the murder of the sisters fueled public outrage against the autocrat, the Church sided against him, and eventually Trujillo was assassinated.

Trujillo’s lengthy regime was full of imprisonments, hardships, and deaths. Trujillo would have many people thrown in jail unreasonably. In the novel, a woman named Magdelena was sentenced to prison for twenty years for trying to get back the daughter that was taken from her. If prisoners were thrown in jail because they were working against Trujillo’s administration, they were tortured harsly for information. “Bug Eye stood before me, holding a rod with a little switch. When he touched me with it, my whole body jumped with exquisite pain.[...] I was about to float off in a haze of brightness when Leandro cried out, I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” (Alvarez 255). This passage from the novel shows how little Trujillo and his administration cared about each prisoner, and how terribly they treated them. Maria Teresa was taken to a different part of the prison and was brought for one thing: information. Most likely her husband, Leandro, had been withholding information and was not responding to tortue on him, so the guards brought in his wife. They tortured her with electricity as he watched, almost immediately saying he will give up the knowledge if they stop tormenting his loved one. This type of situation happened all the time under Trujillo’s regime. A different type of imprisonment was also common among beautiful girls. Although Trujillo was a married man, he would visit schools and single out young girls that had caught his eye. He would pamper them, and he would promise them many things. Then, once he was through with the girls, Trujillo would leave them alone, locked up, in mansions he had acquired to keep the girls away from his wife. As Papa had said in the novel, “He’s got many of them, all over the island, set up in big, fancy houses.” (Alvarez 23).

The Church declaring their opposition to Trujillo’s reign was a major turning point in the tyrant's rule. Everywhere throughout the Dominican Republic, Parishes read a letter stating their thoughts on the dictatorship. In the novel, Patria remarks, “we found out this was happening all over the country. The bishops had gathered together earlier in the week and drafted a pastoral letter to be read from every pulpit that Sunday. The church had at last thrown in its lot with the people!” (Alvarez 207). Even though Trujillo had sent his people to scare off church-goers by placing prostitutes in the church, and sending people to destroy the building and the holy artifacts in the building, Catholics had the confirmation that their clergy was behind them and was against Trujillo’s regime. 

Finally, the Mirabal sisters won their fight against Trujillo because Trujillo was killed. Once news reached the people Minerva, Patria, and Maria Theresa had gotten into a terrible car accident, people were not happy. The cover-up story was nowhere close to believable. When Dede visited her sisters at the hospital, she could clearly see bruises around their necks and marks on their faces that were not caused by a car crash, “I saw the marks on Minerva’s throat; fingerprints sure as day on Mate’s pale neck.” (Alvarez 303). About a year after Mirabal's tragic deaths, Raphael Trujillo was murdered when several assassins ambushed him. As Dede stated in the novel, “...Trujillo was assassinated by a group of seven men, some of them his old buddies” (Alverez 304). Trujillo’s regime was coming to an end long before his death, but when he was killed, the end of his reign was cemented. The novel does not go into very much detail about the end of Trujillo’s regime, since Dede avoided any news, good or bad, but we know from context clues, and occasional references of notable events, that Rafael Trujillo was killed and that the murder of Mariposas’ helped make that happen.

Trujillo’s powerful regime was no match for the Mirabal sister’s movements or the Church’s influence. Even though Trujillo and his men had won many of the battles against his people, with his constant killing, torture, and imprisonments, but eventually the Mirabal sisters and others who despised the dictator won the war against Trujillo by turning the tides and getting people to fight back. Once Trujillo was killed and his rule came to an end, the Mirabal sisters won. Their death, although terrible, trajust, and unjust, meant something.