Why Is 'In The Time Of The Butterflies' Based On True Events?

Question

Reading the historical novel about the Mirabal sisters and wondering which parts were real versus fictionalized. The blend of documented events and imagined scenes feels powerful but sometimes confusing.

Moses Yoder · Answer

I thought this would be an interesting post because the original novel In the Time of the Butterflies was written based on real people and events. Julia Alvarez wrote the novel based on the lives of the Mirabal sisters, who were part of the movement to overthrow the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. Julia fictionalized the real lives of these sisters to tell their story. Similarly, in In the Wake of Truth, a journalist tries to uncover the truth in a decades old cover-up. Along the way he has to sort out the fabricated information in the public records from the real and dangerous information that witnesses are afraid to reveal. The book constructs its tension from this basic issue of buried reality.

Brandon · Answer

In the Time of the Butterflies is a real story about four sisters who fought against the Dominican tyrant Trujillo in the 1940s. Julia Alvarez chose to tell the story of these four sisters because their courage and sacrifice to fight for freedom is inspirational to many people. It is too powerful of a story to be completely made up. Historical facts have been incorporated into the book, but they are developed further in order to give a deeper understanding of the sisters and their struggles. Author Julia Alvarez is from the Dominican Republic, and she wrote this book in order to tell the story of her relatives. The book is powerful because the four sisters existed and fought for justice and were eventually murdered for their actions.

Delaney · Answer

I think ‘In the Time of the Butterflies’ is more compelling as a realistic novel, because the Mirabal sisters were real people who risked their lives under Trujillo’s rule. Therefore, Alvarez has written a very respectful novel, because she based it on the lives of these real women, who were assassinated in 1960 to try and crush the nascent resistance to his dictatorship, and became martyrs for the cause.

The historical facts are transported to life by the novelist’s skilled storytelling. We get a sense of the individuality of the three sisters. Patria’s unwavering faith, Minerva’s inner-fire and fierce spirit, and Mate’s innocence are among the many qualities that have been skillfully channeled into this novel. Though historical facts have been enhanced by Alvarez’s novel, through her creative license, the heroic sisters have not been lessened in their real-life bravery. Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés offers additional examples of feminine bravery expressed throughout cultures.

Declan · Answer

Julia Alvarez crafted the novel ‘In the Time of the Butterflies’ to commemorate the lives of the Mirabal sisters who fought against the oppressive dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. The novel depicts the sisters’ struggle for political change and how they were brutally murdered in 1960. For Alvarez, their lives represent the ordinariness of humanity that can challenge a tyrannical regime.

While Alvarez has relied on historical fact when writing about the sisters’ lives, she has also filled in many gaps of the sisters’ lives with fictional dialogues and inner monologues. The imagined portions of the novel reveal the great amount of humanity in the three daughters of Dr. Mirabal, and provide the reader with an opportunity to see their deep seeded fears and joys while embodying great amounts of courage throughout their struggle. Another novel dealing with the life of dictator Rafael Trujillo is ‘The Feast of the Goat’ by Mario Vargas Llosa.

Olive Nodine · Answer

In a very real way, Alvarez’s novel has become a school book. The sections labeled “based on true events” serve as a rationale for teachers who want to reach their students through literature as opposed to tiresome textbook chapters, even if they are ‘educational’ in the sense that they teach historical facts rather than merely entertain. Discussion of issues such as dictatorship, resistance, sex roles, and the costs of commitment are grist to the mill of Alvarez the educator, using this novel to teach a new generation a very important true story. And in this sense the true events of the novel are the curriculum.

Dana Shilow · Answer

I think the book's presence in the literary canon answers this ‘why’ so clearly. While a purely fictional story set in any generic, undesirable dictatorship would perhaps read well as fiction, it would not achieve half as much as this book does. The connection to real life and to courage are the greatest moral gravitas of the book. It is taught in schools and studied in book clubs around the world; it has been made into films. This story needs to be told and the novel is the best way to tell it because it makes these true events accessible and unforgettable. And Alvarez recognized this. He chose the perfect medium to tell this story and to ensure that it would be told and re-told.

Setiawati Kristiana · Answer

Dedé, the only sister to have survived, frames the story within the novel as it unfolds within the future. The reader is able to experience Dedé’s reflections, as well as her apparent struggles with survivor’s guilt throughout the decades. Ultimately, her efforts bring recognition to the memories of her sisters who died in 1960. History within the novel is portrayed as being on-going and forever affecting subsequent generations of families and friends of those who perished in the tragic event. The novel is based on real history so, therefore, it makes sense that the author would portray the recall of 1960, instead of simply the year itself, in order to best bring to life this on-going history of pain and loss. Dedé, as the real-life sister of the three women who died in the tragic event of 1960, is the novelist’s best model for a ‘curator of memory’. The author’s fictionalized account thus becomes all the more powerful and real.

Matthew Mano · Answer

In the historical novel The Live of the Mirabal Sisters, Julia Alvarez reimagines the lives of the Dominican Republic’s Mirabal sisters who were activist opponents of the notorious dictator Trujillo and were murdered by his henchmen in 1960. Their deaths created such outrage that they were seen as the turning point that brought an end to Trujillo’s regime. Julia Alvarez wrote this novel in order to honor their lives, their work and their personal struggles. She researched extensively in order to write The Lives of the Mirabal Sisters, and in her author’s note she outlines her research and the parts that she took license with in order to continue to stay true to the historical facts of their lives. Thus although the novel is largely true to the historical facts of the sisters’ lives, it fills in the blanks between events with material that is true to life, thus making a historical story about life in the time of a ruthless dictator accessible through the medium of fiction.

Julia Alvarez has discussed her own background and connection to the Dominican Republic in interviews about the novel. The Book on Bookmarks also speaks with others about the impact of Alvarez’s novel on readers’ lives, in particular how the novel has inspired readers to go on to read non-fiction about the real Mirabal sisters, ‘Las Mariposas’.

Cassandra Kim · Answer

One of the aspects of Dirty Pretty Things that is masterful is how Alvarez treated the four different narrative voices of the sister. Each chapter by a different sister is done in a style that usually reflects the personality of the sister. The thoughts and feelings of Minerva are done in fiery and very intellectual written chapters. The chapters done by Mate are written in a very youthful diary like style. And Patria’s chapters are very spiritual and maternal. This way the historical figures are portrayed in a very multidimensional way. A biography of these historical figures would read us information about their personalities. But in this novel you can live with them. The true external events of their lives are presented to us, but we experience the same things from different perspectives. That is where fiction is better than mere reportage, because it can simulate consciousness. The fact that the book is “based on true events” makes this exploration of consciousness feel very real and heavy, as opposed to mere literary exercise.

Debra Grenert Enders · Answer

Language alone deserves to be acknowledged. Alvarez’s writing is lyrical, beautiful and sometimes even poetic. Most of the images are rooted in the Dominican landscape of butterflies, flowers, mountains and rain. At first glance this seems to be in conflict with the gloomy historical events Alvarez describes. But after a while it becomes clear that what she wants to drive home is the fact that the sisters were fighting not only for political freedom but also for a world in which to live. A world full of specific images and experiences of everyday life. Alvarez successfully paints this world and that is why the sisters’ loss is so much more painful and their resistance so much more meaningful.

Drawde Gnisnam · Answer

I should start by saying that the basic plot of the book—four sisters from the Dominican Republic, killed by the Trujillo regime—happens to be true. Of course, Alvarez made up all of the dialog and most of the scenes between characters, but the fact is that these sisters did exist—Patria, Minerva, María Teresa and Dedé—and that three of them were murdered in 1960. All the novel does is take this known story and build out from it to suspenseful and moving tales of individual humanity. Since the reader already knows how it will all end for the three sister’s killed in the novel, every moment of joy, love, etc. is all the more painful for having existed. This is heightened by the ‘based on true events’ framework of the novel’s marketing which heightens the dramatic irony of the reader already knowing the ending to the ‘story’. It is a memorial in novel form. Most ‘fiction’ now a days is geared to take people’s minds off of current problems, this does the opposite and in these times it demands to be read.

Why Is 'In The Time Of The Butterflies' Based On True Events?

11 Answers

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