In The Time Of The Butterflies Essay Questions

They were calling us names, telling us to go back to where we came from. And in a way that was really the hardest moment up to then in my life, because I knew that we couldn't go back, yet I didn't want to stay here.But thank goodness that I had a good sixth grade teacher and that I found the public library, because they put books in my hand and I discovered that there were worlds I could enter where everybody was welcome.JR: What is is a book that helped me understand my country's story and my parents' story.

They were calling us names, telling us to go back to where we came from. And in a way that was really the hardest moment up to then in my life, because I knew that we couldn't go back, yet I didn't want to stay here.But thank goodness that I had a good sixth grade teacher and that I found the public library, because they put books in my hand and I discovered that there were worlds I could enter where everybody was welcome.JR: What is is a book that helped me understand my country's story and my parents' story.

Alvarez, her parents, and her three sisters made their home in a small apartment in New York City.

Despite the racism of some classmates, Alvarez enjoyed learning English and credits the experience with helping her become a writer.

She is the first to join the revolution—" María Teresa (Mate) Mirabal María Teresa, young and naïve, communicates primarily through journal entries. I just go to classes in order to keep my cover as a second-year architecture student.

She becomes aware of the underground after she questions Minerva about both the strange, coded language she uses and a crate of guns that is delivered to the house. My true identity now is Mariposa (#2), waiting daily, hourly, for communications from up north." Patria Mirabal The eldest sister, Patria, toys with the idea of becoming a nun before falling in love at sixteen with Pedrito González, a handsome young farmer.

"I see them all there in my memory, as still as statues, Mamá and Papá, and Minerva and Mate and Patria, and I'm thinking something is missing now.

And I count them all twice before I realize—it's me, Dedé, it's me, the one who survived to tell the story.As she explains, “Not understanding the language, I had to pay close attention to each word—great training for a writer.I also discovered the welcoming world of the imagination and books.” After high school, Alvarez earned her bachelor's degree from Middlebury College, and her master's degree in creative writing from Syracuse University.[this novel is] as lovely as a butterfly at rest, and as moving as one in flight” ( (1994) is a work of historical fiction based on the lives of the four Mirabal sisters, who participated in underground efforts to topple Rafael Leonidas Trujillo's three-decade-long dictatorial regime in the Dominican Republic.Three of the sisters—Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa—were slain on Trujillo's orders on November 25, 1960.We learn the details of the Butterflies' martyrdom slowly and, as it emerges from its chrysalis, readers find a story that spreads its wings, pauses to breathe the air of freedom, and gently takes flight.Minerva Mirabal Independent, outspoken Minerva is determined to get an education but, even after finishing law school, is prohibited by Trujillo from practicing.Their story haunted Alvarez, whose own family had fled the Dominican Republic just three months earlier in fear that her father's participation in the resistance would make him a target of Trujillo.The novel is both an homage to the bravery and sacrifice of the Mirabal family and a literary work of high grace.She had been teaching at Middlebury College for three years when her first novel, (1991), was published.The book received widespread acclaim and enabled her to pursue writing as a full-time career. Alvarez lives with her husband, Bill Eichner, in Vermont.