In the Time of the Butterflies

Key Questions Answers

Part I Answers
1. She was taken away, and she seemed she does not have a lot of choices. Even though she began to love Trujillo, he does not love her anymore and has interest on other pretty, young girls. She has to stay in the house not to get caught by his wife as if she is locked in a jail. Lina Lovaton seems to have happy life in the beginning with the full love from Trujillo, but she soon becomes poor abandoned by the dictator.
2. Dede is the only one survived in the Trujillo’s dictatorial era. She survived maybe because she was afraid of death. Maybe there was an outer pressure forcing her not to join in the revolutionary movement.
3. The interview on Dede about her sisters show that Dede is the only one survived and that the revolutionary actions of her sisters were not successful.

Part II Answers
  1. Lio's letter is about running away and asking Minerva to join him. Dede burns it in hopes of protecting Minerva. She believes this will get Minerva involved in the movement which will eventually lead the family getting involved. Dede is afraid to join the movement, even later in the story.
  2. Trujillo is afraid of Minerva becoming a lawyer. He notices that Minerva is already against him being in power and giving her the satisfaction of receiving the diploma. Giving her the diploma would make her feel successful and believe she can manipulate and bring down Trujillo. Trujillo is also against women having power and giving her the diploma would make other women believe they can work to win power like Minerva.
  3. Maria Teresa's dream could foreshadowing people she sees the dream are going to die in the future. Her first dream showed her dead father in a coffin. In the next dreams, she sees Manolo and Minerva's friend in the coffin. This is showing that they will die like her father did.
4.   Pedrito was totally opposing the idea of meeting in his back yard. Pedrito accepts to lend their backyard     anyway because their son is also in the revolutionary movement.
5.   Padre de Jesus Lopez is a prist who gets involves in the revolution. The Mirabal sisters ask for his help,   and they all gets involved in the movement.
6.  The main reason is because of her son. First she meets Padre de jesus Lopez to talk about her son Nelson. Then when revolutionaries were attacked, she feels bad for the one of the boy, who is about Noris’s age, getting gunned down.

Part III Answers
1. She was going to participate at first, and fights with her husband because Jamito opposes of Dede going to revolutionary movements. Dede’s decision of not joining her sisters effects the story enormously, because if she had went with her sisters, then she would have died too

2. I believe that Patria wanted to divorce with Jamito because she believes that she would be happier if Jamito is not with her.

3. The scene of Mirabal families arrested in jail might indicate that the story is starting to resolute, as the revolutionaries are in trouble.

Epilogue Answers
1.  Dede decide not to deliver Manolo’s seashell to Minou because she wanted to protect her niece. Manolo’s death might be a shock to Minou, and Dede was afraid Minou would be depressed about her father’s death. Dede tries to protect the people by not showing the letter and lying about the truth. Even though lying and deception is considered bad normally, her lies and deception was to protect people. It would be completely the same reason why she did not deliver Lio’s letter to Minerva. Dede hides the letter in order to protect her sister, but she also felt jealous to the relationship between Dede and Lio. Even with the loving relationship with Jaimito at that time, Dede had a slight interest on Lio. She just eased herself by saying she hides the letter just to defend her sister.

2. The butterflies are used as Mirabal sisters’ secret code during Trujillo reign. They needed the code to communicate with people who are willing to overthrow Trujillo. The code was “las mariposas,” which means “the butterflies” in English. The sisters are nicknamed as “Las Mariposas.” Also, the image of the butterflies flying freely demonstrates their attempt to gain freedom from Trujillo’s entrapment.