Summary:
Discusses the book, In the Time of the Butterflies, inspired by the true story of the three Mirabal sisters who, in 1960, were murdered for their part in an underground plot to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.
The Mirabel sisters proved in their lives and their deaths that committed individuals can make a difference. These women realized that their families shouldn't have to live in the current situation and wanted change. They gave up what was important in their lives for their cause. When Patria loses her baby she also loses her hope from the church and seeks an agent for change. Because the current political and church system couldn't provide that hope she joined the revolution to try and change the system.
Early in Patria's life she was called to the church. The nun in her school told her to look for a sign to find her true calling. While she was washing feet during a religious service she saw this boy her age that she liked. Over the next year, they married and quickly had 2 children. When her third child was stillborn she privately lost her faith in the church.
She lost her faith the first time because she looked at her country and saw all the terrible things happening, families being decimated, friends being killed, and the Haitians being killed at the border, and questioned why would God allow his people to suffer so much. "I looked up, challenging him. And the two faces merged" (Alvarez 53). In the same way she challenged Gods actions she wanted to challenge Trujillo's actions.
On her pilgrimage she gets her faith back and goes back to raise her children. On another one of her trips to a monastery she watches an attack where a young rebel boy gets killed. In the brief amount of time she connects to the boy and imagines that he was the boy she lost. At this moment she makes the decision to "I'm not going to sit back and watch my babies die, lord, even it that's what you in your great wisdom decide."(Alvarez 162). Through her whole life she had been looking towards god for her guidance, but for the first time she went against god and wanted to improve the lives of her countrymen.
Similarly, Patria went against the government because she realized to accomplish her goal of personal freedoms (for everyone) she needed to change the political system, which was an absolute dictatorship under a cruel leader Trujillo.
With her ideas about why God would not avenge a person who did such things to innocent people, she joined the 14th of June movement with her sisters. Their goal was to do what, Patria though god should have done, take Trujillo out of power.
Over time the Mirabel sisters became highly respected for their efforts against Trujillo, which everyone in the Dominican Republic had the desire to but did not. In one instance the common people forgave a, previously thought, evil man, Pena. "But being seen conversing with Dona Patria sent out the message- I didn't hold him responsible for my loss." (Alvarez 219). Pena had bought their farm after it had been confiscated from the Mirabel family. Many people hated him for this action, but since the role model in Patria proved to the bystanders that he had not done anything wrong to them he had just bought a cheap farm from the government.
According to these reasons Patria Mirabel used her life to try and change to help herself. While tried to help her in finding freedoms she also helped others gain freedoms by setting an example of fighting for beliefs, change in her case. If it were for a child she didn't have or for seeing the church not helping its people she still helped change herself and consequently the world.
This is the complete article, containing 603 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
