Mirabal Heroines
Believing that there are things worth risking your life for is a quality that is well respected.
The Mirabal sisters are all considered heroines for their work against Trujillo. Three of them even died for this cause. Minerva Mirabal is a heroine because of the way she stood up to
Trujillo. She is respected throughout the Dominican Republic. In every aspect of her life, she worked against him for the good of her country. Her heroic life was especially shown by her friendships, her desire to attend law school, and her work in the national underground.
All during Minerva's life, some of her closest friends opposed Trujillo. The first of which was
Sinita, a girl she met at school. ""Trujillo is the devil," Sinita said as we tiptoed back to our beds," (19). Sinita told Minerva the secret of Trujillo and how he had killed her family along with many others. She was the first to ignite the fire of rebellion inside Minerva. Sinita was not the only rebellious friend Minerva met at school. Maté noted, "This new friend of Minerva's,
Hilda, is really rude." (31). Hilda was hidin...
Minerva is able to show her courage at a dinner party thrown by Trujillo, the dictator at the time. At the party she went to reluctantly, Trujillo asks Minerva to dance. Knowing of Trujillo’s offensive past with females, she is hesitant to accept, but says
The rule of Rafael Trujillo directly affected Patricia Mirabal. Patricia grew up as the oldest of four girls, and she was naturally the nicest, simplest of the four girls. She married early and had kids before she turned 20. But as she grew older, her faith was restored. One day she went on a church retreat into the mountains, the same day the first invasion from Trujillo fell. The author described how it seemed as if the Earth was coming down upon the very roof of that retreat house. Explosion after explosion ripped the air. The house shook to its very foundation (Alvarez 161). During that attack, Patricia made eye contact with a young boy who couldn’t be older than her own son in the
sister is Minerva. Their is 3 great reasons why Minerva is a hero. Minerva stood up for Sinita
Minerva is very rebellious, she doesn't like to listen when told to do something and she doesn't
In The Time of the Butterflies, chapter six briefly explain why Minerva action against Trujillo led to the sister death. Minerva slapping Trujillo in the face was a sign of bravery that she was not going to let Trujillo dilated her action like he did to a bunch of other women. It was clearly shown that Trujillo wasn’t going to let this slide by, instead build various events to make her suffer, making her commit to this actions which eventually will give Trujillo a reason for murdering the sisters’.“ pg 83-101”. This evidence shows that Minerva is willing to break out from the barriers that society and Trujillo dictatorship is implementing on them, and make a change for the better. “Women hold their beaded evening bags over their head, trying to protect their foundering hairdo after Minerva slap Trujillo”(pg 100). This shows how during the era that Trujillo govern fear was upon every individual that step in the shadow of Trujillo even if you didn 't have anything to do with it. “But el jefe has other plans for me,” A mind of her own, this little cibaeña”(Trujillo), her smirks, rubbing his cheek, then turns to Don Manuel”(pg 101). This evidence shows that Trujillo had other plans to handles his
Out of all the Mirabal sisters, being courageous was Minerva’s specialty to show how she feels without being verbal with her emotions, and to get her point across. Right from the beginning of the book Minerva chose to create actions that were not only courageous, but reckless. After Minerva found out about her other sisters she crashed her father’s Jeep into his Ford at his other lover’s house. As always, she wanted to make a scene, “My voice was as commanding as his. ‘You’ve lost my respect,’” (Alvarez 89). Her father was extremely disappointed with her, but she wanted him to know that what he was doing was extremely wrong. Crashing her father’s cars was definitely brave, and especially since she did it in front of her other family without any second thoughts. Towards the middle of the book, Minerva informed Mate about some things she did not know, “Manolo and Minerva have explained everything. A national underground is forming,” and this is when Minerva explained more about how they created a national underground to try to get everybody freedom no matter what happened (Alvarez 142). This national underground was a h...
turn the light of truth upon,”10 which is something she truly fought for and succeeded
Derby Lauren, The Dictator's Seduction: Gender and State Spectacle during the Trujillo Regime, Callaloo 23.3. Summer 2000, pp. 1112-1146.
Over the course of the novel, the Mirabal sisters have shown a strong desire to be in the revolution and free their country from the cruel hands of Trujillo and his regime whilst putting their families in danger. Minerva is the first to give into the revolution as she leaves her children with her sisters and mother while she goes on to try and free the country. “I, who treasured my children more than my own life, couldn’t believe my sister would leave her son for anything…..”(155).Though abandoning her child must be a hard thing to do, Minerva does this, which strongly portrays her dedication to the revolution is stronger than her dedications to her children. They allow their homes to be ‘invaded’ by the revolutionaries; allow their hom...
People ought to live in a society where they feel safe and welcomed; however, when harsh and unnecessary laws are put into place, the people will be unhappy. In the novel, Minerva goes to the government to study law, and after five years, she receives her law degree. She gathers the whole family for her graduation only to learn that she will not be handed “the license to practice. [... Trujillo] was planning all along to let her study for five whole years only to render that degree useless in the end. How cruel!” (Alvarez 138). Trujillo is threatened by powerful women like Minerva, so he does not hand her “the license to practice,” law, meaning she cannot become a lawyer. Minerva could be a threat to his reign, so once Minerva has a position in the government, she will be powerful enough to create a rebellion to overthrow him, endangering his position in society. Therefore, he simply let Minerva “study for five whole years only to render that degree useless in the end,” causing outrage in the Mirabal family. Not allowing women to have many rights or do what they please, creates overall unhappiness in the society, leading to the people revolt, like the Mirabal sisters and many others eventually did. Similarly, the first step of a revolution is described as the overall unhappiness of the people (Steps of a Revolution Notes). This displeasure can be seen in the third estate during the time of the French revolution because they were not treated well by the king and queen at the time, they worked the most but were also taxed the most. Not being treated equally to the other estates, caused the third estate to strive for a voice in the government, which, ultimately, led to the rebellion to overthrow the king and queen. Overall, the unhappiness of the people against the government will cause a rebellion for more freedom and equal rights.
Esperanza, the most liberated of the sisters, devoted her life to make other people’s lives better. She became a reporter and later on died while covering the Gulf Crisis. She returned home, to her family as a spirit. At first, she spoke through La Llorona, a messenger who informed La Loca that her sister has died. All her family members saw her. She appeared to her mother as a little girl who had a nightmare and went near to her mother for comfort. Caridad had conversations with her about politics and La Loca talked to her by the river behind their home.
The Dominican Republic under the Trujillo regime was considered one of the most violent eras ever in the Americas. In The Time of The Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, commemorates the lives of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal. These women were known as “Las Mariposas” because of their direct involvement in an underground revolution against Trujillo. In the story, the Mirabel sisters are women with childhoods, hopes, and dreams, who fight for the liberation of their country. After their assassination, they became symbols of freedom and revolution for persecuted peoples all over the world. The Mirabal sisters not only fought against the Trujillo regime, but also opposed the unfair gender roles of that time. In the Dominican Republic,
This is evident in two key moments in the story, both of which involve Minerva’s sisters. In the first, the manifestation of her inspiring Maria Teresa comes when Maria Teresa stands up to her. Behind the virgin mary, maria teresa is infuriated that Minerva won't tell her what they’re talking about so she confronts her about their conversation. This is very similar to the attitude that Minerva would have had in this situation, further illustrating Minerva’s inspiration of Maria Teresa. A second demonstration of Minerva’s inspiring courage in others, once again, comes through Maria Teresa joining of the revolution. While some will say that Maria Teresa’s real reason for joining the revolution came in the form of the man delivering guns, it’s clearly evident that without her sister's involvement in the rebellion, she would not have joined. This shows Minerva true inspirational impact. Even without being the principal reason for her sister’s decision to join the rebellion, the fact that she was a major part of the rebellion, a leader of the rebellion even, was enough for Maria
In 1938, Minerva’s father permitted her to go away to boarding school along with her two older sisters, Patria and Dedé. Alvarez’s writing on behalf of Minerva speaks volumes as to the point of view Minerva had growing up. “And that’s how I got free. I don’t mean just going to sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. I mean in my head after I got to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I’d left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country,” (Alvarez 13). Minerva’s father, said that out of all his daughters, Minerva should have been born a boy. The other Mirabal sisters said that she was their father’s favorite daughter because Minerva acted the most like a son to him. She almost became the son he had always wanted, but never had. Due to her father’s influence, as Minerva grew up, she aspired to being a lawyer. Something which was unheard of for a woman in the ‘40s.
Minerva does not try and escape even though she “is always sad like a house on fire—always something wrong. She has many troubles, but the big one is her husband who left and keeps leaving” (Cisneros 63). Minerva is clearly unhappy, but because she is accepting of her role and she will not leave him. She does not have the power to leave her husband and if she tried she would probably be beaten or worse. Esperanza wants to help Minerva but there is nothing that she can do for her: “Next week she comes over black and blue and asks what can she do? Minerva. I don’t know which way she’ll go. There is nothing I can do” (Cisneros 63). Esperanza knows that she cannot do anything for Minerva. It will take the power of Minerva removing herself from the abusive situation to actually save herself. Minerva having no power in her marriage is a clear relationship back to the theme of women accepting their role with men as their superior.