Feminist Book Club: In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez

On November 25th, 1960, the bodies of three women and one man were found in a Jeep at the bottom of a cliff in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. At first glance, the wreckage would have appeared to be the result of a terrible accident—perhaps the driver lost control of the Jeep on one of the countryside’s many treacherous mountain passes, and he and his three female passengers paid the ultimate price. Of course, no one in the entire country believed that story. Even if it took years for the truth to come out in any official capacity, the people always knew about the bludgeoning and strangulation marks on the bodies of the passengers. These weren’t just any passengers, after all. They were the Mirabal sisters and their loyal driver, Rufino. Or, as the sisters were better known among the people of their nation, Las Mariposas—the butterflies.
Julia Alvarez’ In the Time of the Butterflies tells a fictionalized version of the Mirabal sisters’ story, and it’s a tale that will be familiar to anyone from the Dominican Republic. In fact, this story will be familiar to anyone who has escaped a totalitarian state, or dreams of escaping, or whose ancestors escaped—which, after all, covers most of the people on the planet. In the Time of the Butterflies details the sisters’ transition from respectable plantation owners’ daughters to hunted revolutionaries over the course of two decades. After watching their freedoms gradually erode, the sisters became unlikely folk heroines who fought against the oppressive regime of Rafael Trujillo, one of the most murderous dictators the Caribbean has ever seen.
There were four Mirabal sisters in total. Patria was the eldest—passionate about the church, her children, and her husband, Pedrito. Kind, eager to please, and cautious Dedé is next in line, who eventually marries the domineering Jaimito. Minerva is the lionhearted law student who is always the first to stand up to injustice. Minerva finds her soulmate in a fellow revolutionary, Manolo. The baby of the family is Maria Teresa. Enamored with Minerva’s politics, Maria Teresa and husband Leandro are quick to join Minerva and Manolo in the fray. Patria does her best to stay out of politics until she witnesses several freedom fighters slaughtered by Trujillo’s forces. She joins her sisters in their resistance and eventually persuades Pedro to join. It is only Dedé who does not join the movement, held back by Jaimito’s refusal to give his permission. It is for this reason that Dedé survives, and the novel is told from her perspective decades later. True to history, the novel presents us with the juxtaposition of women who lead a revolution, but who also live in a culture in which their deference to the men in their lives is expected. Alvarez doesn’t tell us what to think about this—she merely shows us, in poignant relief, how each woman deals with this paradox in her own way.

Although the trouble begins to percolate from the very beginning of the novel, the plot kicks into high gear when Minerva crosses paths with Trujillo. After the dictator makes a series of crude sexual advances toward her, she slaps him across the face. Trujillo appears to take the rejection in stride, but follows it up with the systematic imprisonment, interrogation, and torture of multiple generations of Mirabals. Indeed, Trujillo’s vengeances ranged from the horrific to the petty—after “graciously” allowing Minerva to spend half a decade studying law in the capital, Trujillo arranges for her to be denied a license to practice.
The mass of walking egomania and cruelty that was Rafael Trujillo sheds light on the character of dictators the world over. Alvarez pulls no punches in her portrayal of a man who often drugged women at state dinners and raped them, who had his caliés “disappear” anyone who voiced disapproval of him, and who insisted the people whom he terrorized fall all over themselves to express their gratitude for the privilege. How heartbreaking to think that, on the other side of the island in Haiti, an eerily similar tragedy played itself out in the form of Papa Doc Duvalier and his Tonton Macoutes. Perhaps even sadder is that during the Mirabals’ rise, the overthrow of Baptista by Fidel Castro’s guerillas was looked upon as a beacon of hope in a region that desperately needed some. Perhaps there is some grace in that Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Patria did not live to see the truth behind Fidel Castro’s brand of “freedom.”

Much like the imperialists before them who viewed both natural resources and human beings as commodities for the taking, the Caribbean dictators’ collective story is one of entitlement. Nowhere is this better showcased in the novel than in Trujillo’s treatment of Minerva. He is so mystified and incensed by her refusal of him that he puts a target on her back that she never outruns. There is a kind of poetic justice, then, to the way the story ends. Minerva and her sisters were murdered by the regime, but not before they emblazoned themselves onto the hearts of every Dominican who longed for freedom. The butterflies were symbols of hope, honor, and courage in the face of the unspeakable terror campaign that eventually resulted in their deaths. It is not a coincidence that Trujillo himself was assassinated six months after he had the Mirabals murdered in cold blood. Their deaths were the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back—an egregious misstep that proved to be the spidering crack in Trujillo’s marble facade. Several years ago, the United Nations named November 25th the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women in honor of the Mirabals, and their faces adorn monuments, murals, and currency across their nation. One wonders what Trujillo would think of that.
Next month’s selection: Sex Object, by Jessica Valenti