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| Google Books |
Mama sighs, but
playfulness has come back into her voice. “Just what we need, skirts in the
law”
“It is just what the
country needs”…It’s about time we women had a voice in running our country.
You and Trujillo, Papá
says a little loudly, and in this clear peaceful night they all fall silent.
Suddenly, the dark filled with spies who are paid to hear things and report
them down at Security. Don Enrique claims Trujillo needs help running this
country. Don Enrique’s daughter says it’s about time women took over the
government. Words repeated, distorted, words recreated by those who might bear
them a grudge, words stitched to words until they are the winding sheet the
family will be buried in when their bodies are found dumped in a ditch, their
tongues cut off for speaking too much.
(Alvarez 10)
In the Time of Butterflies is the story of Mirabal, Patria,
Dede, and Minerva. This story takes place in the Dominican Republic and although
the four sisters really did exist, it is a work of fiction. This novel follows
the story of the sisters using flashbacks and the third person. However, what
makes this story so compelling is the plot: four young women who are fighting
for a political cause. What is also interesting about this book is the reader
able to learn a lot about Trujillo’s dictatorship. The way in which the history
plays out in the novel is very subtle; an example of this is in the book the
Mirabal family discuss how everybody in the country has to have a picture of
Trujillo on their living room wall if they do not it shows that they are not
loyal to him. While I was reading I noticed the book was teaching me something
new, but not in a boring way. It is also important to note that the audience
does not have to research the history as it is explained in detail in the book.
Although the story has a lot of history there is a narrative
that is easy to follow as well. A woman who was born in the Dominican Republic,
but grew up in the United States, has gone back to find out more about the
sisters since she wants to write a book about them. People in the United States
don’t know about the sisters and the woman believes their heroic story is worth
telling. There is only one remaining sister left alive and that is Dede. The
story is told through the memory of Dede, but each chapter is titled for one of
the sisters as well as a time period. Dede talks to the writer although at
first she is somewhat reluctant since she has spoken to so many people about
them before. Dede works at a museum dedicated to her sisters, and therefore
assumes she knows what the writer is going to ask her. However, we learn from
the book the questions were different than that of what she had been expecting.
Because it is history we know from the beginning what is going to happen at the
end, which is three of the Mirabal sisters are going to die, but what
encouraged me to read the story is the book does not focus on their death but
on their lives. The book starts with the sisters at young ages and develops
until their fatal deaths. The story is also about their non-political lives,
their lives as young women meaning their crushes, feuds, happy moments and sad
moments. This is what makes the story so great. It is a book I recommend since
it is a story of something that we unfortunately do not learn in our history
books and depicts four young women fighting against all of the odds to make
their country a better place to live in. Anybody who picks up this book even if
they are not interested in history will enjoy it.
By Gilma Velasquez
