In the Time of the Butterflies

“‘You and Trujillo,’ Papá says a little loudly, and in this clear peaceful night they all fall silent.”  

Even in the relative calm of their own house, the Mirabal family knows just how far Trujillo’s reach extends. Even saying his name casually can result in trouble for the family, and shows the extent of Trujillo’s police state in the Dominican Republic.

“‘Sometimes, watching the rabbits in their pens, I’d think, I’m no different from you, poor things.’” 

Minerva identifies with her family’s caged rabbits as her freedom is curtailed by her father. She must ask him for everything, and longs to be free to go wherever she chooses.

“‘And that’s how I got free … and realized that I’d just left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country.’” 

Minerva astutely realizes that her freedom is not only limited at home, but that Dominicans as a whole are imprisoned by Trujillo’s repressive regime.

“When we got to school that fall, we were issued new history textbooks with a picture of you-know-who embossed on the cover so even a blind person could tell who the lies were about. Our history now followed the plot of the Bible.” 

This quote shows how Trujillo actually rewrote history to show himself as the bringer of Dominican salvation. The new history books make it appear as if Dominicans have been waiting for Trujillo to arrive since the dawn of time. Though completely inaccurate, no one dares to speak out against this fallacy. 

“‘I see the picture of our president with eyes that follow me around the room, and I am thinking he is trying to catch me doing something wrong. Before, I always thought our president was like God, watching over everything I did.’” 

Mate’s eyes are open now, and she realizes that Trujillo is not the Benefactor he claims to be, but an ominous figure whose very portrait conspires to incriminate her. This quote also shows how easy it is to conflate God and man in a personality cult like Trujillo’s regime.

“Beside [the Good Shepherd] hung the required portrait of El Jefe, touched up to make him look better than he was. ‘They’re a pair, aren’t they?’ she noted.”

Minerva’s quip about God and Trujillo is symbolic of many people’s views of Trujillo, who is considered the Devil incarnate, just as Christ is God incarnate. In fact, when Patria looks at the two portraits, she says that their faces merge, highlighting the dictator’s status as a godlike figure.

“She had never known an enemy of state before. She had assumed such people would be self-serving and wicked, low-class criminals … Enemy of state? Why then, Minerva was an enemy of state. And if she, Dedé, thought long and hard about what was right and wrong, she would no doubt be an enemy of state as well.” 

In this important quote, Dedé realizes that what she reads in the news is not always the truth. She shares many of the same values as Virgilio, which means that, if he is an enemy of state, she and Minerva would be considered enemies of the state as well. This quote also highlights just how thin the line between friend and enemy is.

“‘I didn’t know,’ she said again. What she meant was she didn’t understand until that moment that they were really living—as Minerva liked to say—in a police state.’” 

Dedé has been living under the impression that the Dominican Republic has problems, but is still a democracy. As it turns out, her purported ignorance is really a failure to comprehend how dire the political situation is.

“Lío’s words of warning wash over me. This regime is seductive. How else would a whole nation fall prey to this little man?” 

Minerva is initially disappointed that Trujillo does not ask her to dance. She suddenly remembers how Trujillo seduces people, and she puts herself on guard should he attempt to seduce her—politically, as well as sexually. 

“There was a broadcast of a speech by this man Fidel, who is trying to overturn their dictator over in Cuba … Minerva has big parts memorized … I am so hoping that now that Minerva has found a special someone, she’ll settle down.” 

Minerva is becoming more and more political. Castro’s revolution in Cuba is providing strength and inspiration to the revolutionaries in the Dominican Republic as well. Minerva draws strength from the sacrifice that Castro is making for his people.

“I think people should be kind to each other and share what they have. But never in a million years would I take up a gun and force people to give up being mean.” 

This quote expresses Mate’s attitude towards the resistance and politics more generally. While her desire to share everything might seem communist, her refusal to impose her beliefs on other people, especially through violence, suggests that she values democracy and freedom more than any particular political doctrine.

“There were hundreds of us, the women all together, in white dresses like we were his brides … It looked like the newsreels of Hitler and the Italian one with the name that sounds like fettuccine.” 

Trujillo’s rule is compared to both Hitler and Mussolini, in a scathing indictment of his rule of terror and abuse of human rights. Despite her limited knowledge of history, Mate knows evil when she sees it.

“I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.” 

Mate has another insight into the relation between love and war. She does not think she could give Leandro up if she had to, like Minerva and Manolo would. At first, love seems to have nothing to do with the struggle for freedom, but she later realizes that love is a worthy struggle in its own right. 

“That room was silent with the fury of avenging angels sharpening their radiance before they strike … And so we were born in the spirit of the vengeful Lord, no longer His lambs.” 

Patria and her church friends have witnessed bloodshed at the hands of the regime. They are tired of standing idly by, and are now ready to be active members of the church instead of docile lambs, meaning that they will fight in the underground movement as well.

“Dedé shakes her head. ‘Back in those days, we women followed our husbands.’ Such a silly excuse. After all, look at Minerva. ‘Let’s put it this way,’ Dedé adds. ‘I followed my husband. I didn’t get involved.’” 

Dedé again tries to excuse the fact that she did not get involved with the resistance because she was a woman and women followed their husbands’ advice. However, she admits that she chose to follow her husband because it was safe. Ultimately, it was her decision.

“And here she’d always berated him for his failures in business when the greater bankruptcy had been on her part.” 

Dedé realizes that she has been making excuses to be angry with her husband. She realizes that she married her husband because it was the easy thing to do, which shows her that she is the one who is lacking in their relationship.

“I don’t know if that’s how it started, but pretty soon, I was praying to him, not because he was worthy or anything like that. I wanted something from him, and prayer was the only way I knew to ask.” 

Patria begins praying to El Jefe as his picture was hung right next to the picture of Christ. As she wants El Jefe to do something for her—release her loved ones—she figures she might as well “pray,” or ask, him for help.

“El Jefe entered in a wash of camera flashes. I don’t know what I thought I’d see—I guess after three months of addressing him, I was sure I’d feel a certain kinship with the stocky, overdressed man before me. But it was just the opposite. The more I tried to concentrate on the good side of him, the more I saw a vain, greedy, unredeemed creature. Maybe the evil one had become flesh like Jesus!”

Though Patria has been praying to El Jefe, and though she has tried to think of him as a human being, when she sees him in the flesh, she feels evil radiating from his body. She thinks that he is the Devil incarnate.

“The alternative is freezing yourself up, never showing what you’re feeling, never letting on what you’re thinking … Then one day, you’re out of here, free, only to discover you’ve locked yourself up and thrown away the key somewhere too deep inside your heart to fish it out.”

Mate berates herself for breaking down while in jail, but Minerva tells her that breakdowns are actually therapeutic. The alternative would be to bottle her hate and sadness inside. Once a person is free from prison, they will find themselves in yet another prison, one of their own making.

“Then everyone was beating on the bars, calling out, ¡Viva la Mariposa! Tears came to my eyes. Something big and powerful spread its wings inside me … Courage, I told myself. And this time, I felt it.” 

Mate’s strength is renewed in a powerful moment. When Minerva is being carried to solitary confinement, everyone chants “Long live the Butterfly,” which is the sisters’ code name. This affirmation of their determination and drive show Mate how important their task is for others, and for herself.

“I will never forget the terror on Dedé’s face. How she reached for my hand. How, when we were asked to identify ourselves, what she said was—I will never forget this—she said, ‘My name is Minerva Mirabal.’” 

Despite her acknowledgement of her fear and her refusal to join the movement, when it comes to defending her sister, Dedé is willing to put herself in danger. She wants nothing more to protect Minerva, and pretends that she is Minerva to try and ensure her sister’s safety.

“We moved quickly now towards the Jeep, hurrying as if we had to catch up with that truck. I don’t know quite how to say this, but it was as if we were girls again, walking through the dark part of the yard, a little afraid, a little excited by our fears, anticipating the lighted house just around the bend—”

This passage is rife with foreshadowing, as well as despair. The sisters are killed on this road, after passing the bend. This quote shows that the sisters were aware of the danger they were courting as the Butterflies. It also suggests that they are happy with not knowing exactly what they will find “just around the bend.”

“‘Dedé, mujer, what is it you want—to get yourself killed, too?’ I nodded. I said, ‘I want to be with them.’ He said—I remember it so clearly—he said, ‘This is your martyrdom, Dedé, to be alive without them.’” 

Dedé is overcome with grief at the loss of her sisters, and finds her voice now that they have been murdered. Though she admits to Jaimito that she wants to be with them, he poignantly tells her that she is a martyr as well, and that her martyrdom is to remain alive without them.