What did Fela do In the Time of the Butterflies?
Fela. Fela was the Mirabal family’s long-time maid, and stayed on working in the house with Dedé after the sisters and Mamá died. However, Dedé lets her go when she “started going wacky after the girls died” (2.5. 3).
What kind of character is Dede In the Time of the Butterflies?
Dede tends to be a follower rather than a leader, and a pacifist in her dealings with people, “the docile middle child, used to following the lead. . . . cheerful, compliant.” As one might expect, Dede ended with a husband who was a bossy, dominant type personality, Jaimito.
How does Dede change In the Time of the Butterflies?
In the end, Dede emerges as a butterfly from her cocoon. She transforms herself from a tiny caterpillar controlled by the opinions and orders of others and breaks free as a strong, colorful butterfly that will soar in spite of what torture and loss her heart has been forced to survive.
What point of view is In the Time of the Butterflies?
Each chapter of In the Time of the Butterflies is narrated in the first person from the perspective of one of the four sisters who are the main characters, except for the chapters where Dedé is the main character. These are narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator.
What does the butterfly symbolize In the Time of the Butterflies?
The Mirabal sisters used the code name Las Mariposas, which is the Spanish term meaning “the Butterflies.” Butterflies, in this instance, are a symbol of freedom, flight, and the ability to rise above tragedy.
Did Minerva really love Lio?
She wasn’t in love with Lío, but she was still hurt when he left without saying goodbye. For Dedé, Virgilio was a life-changing romance, but for Minerva he is someone to share her revolutionary ideas while she is trapped at home.
Who is Dede most in love with?
Bélgica Adela Mirabal Reyes, who goes by the nickname Dedé, is the only sister to never join the resistance movement and to survive past 1960. She falls in love with the revolutionary Virgilio but never acts on her feelings and marries her non-revolutionary cousin Jaimito instead.
What question is Dede obsessed with?
Dede is at first very suspicious of the American interviewer. She has been enduring the questions about her sisters, “Las Mariposas” (the butterflies) for over fifty years (1943-1994, when the novel begins).
Who are the sister in the Time of the Butterflies?
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez tells the story of the figureheads of the revolution in the Dominican Republic in the mid-twentieth century: the Mirabal sisters.
What do butterflies symbolize In the Time of the Butterflies?
Who is narrating in the Time of the Butterflies?
The chapters where Minerva and Patria are the narrator (2, 6, and 12 and 4, 8, and 10, respectively) are told from the first person perspective, with each sister telling her own side of the story. Mate’s chapters are also written in first person, but they are in the form of a diary.
What does the rain symbolize In the Time of the Butterflies?
Rain is used as a symbol of tragic or disastrous events, or as a foreshadowing of doom. The first scene in which it is mentioned is at the end of Chapter 1, “a clear moonlit night before the future begins”. The family is all together, and Mama is chiding Minerva for her radical and dangerous political views.
Where does Minou stop in the time of the butterflies?
Minou often stops at the shrine, which is now down the street. She asks Dede where Lio Morales now lives, since Minerva has asked her to deliver a message to him—just to say hello, and to state how much she thinks of him. When the interview woman presses on, asking Dede, “When did all the problems start?”
Who are the four Mirabal sisters in the time of the butterflies?
This is the story of the four Mirabal sisters during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. At school, one of the sisters, Minerva, meets a girl, Sinita, who later became one of her best friends.
What does Minerva say in the time of the butterflies?
Minerva starts to argue, but Patria smooths things over and says that it is Dedé’s own decision. Dedé is shocked at how idealistic the butterflies are, but Minerva has a point – Trujillo gained power and held it for 31 years only because people stood by and allowed it.
What happens at the end of the time of the butterflies?
When Dedé introduces Minou, the interview woman becomes ecstatic, as she has now met both the daughter and sister of the famous Minerva. Finally the woman bids them farewell and leaves. We know the butterflies are dead, but now Alvarez gives some more foreshadowing about the situation of their deaths.