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In The Time Of The Butterflies Women's Roles

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In The Time Of The Butterflies Women's Roles
Thomas 1
Greeshma Thomas
Dr. Eugenio Pacelli Villarreal
MLG 314
21 September 2014
Women in In the Time of the Butterflies Women’s role and rights in the society- an issue which is being discussed since past few decades and has still not reached an absolute conclusion. In In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez portrays the life of women in a male dominated social and political society. Through the novel, a question arises which is, “Who decides the expiry date for a woman’s dreams?” In the novel, Alvarez answers the question through the story of the Mirabal sisters, the women who broke their boundaries of what their gender can do and came out of the household to do something better. This shows that no one else can decide the expiry …show more content…
A fighter from the beginning, she always stood up to get what she aimed for. She didn’t care who her opponent was, the life inside the household was almost suffocating for her and knew that she was born for something else. If it wasn’t for Minerva, the Mirabal sisters would have been just like any other women in the Dominican Republic. "Tears came to my eyes. Something big and powerful spread its wings inside me. Courage, I told myself. And this time, I felt it"(283). She was courageous from the moment she was born till the moment she died. The fragrance of her thoughts were soon spread to others especially Mate. Where Minerva didn’t let her romantic life interfere with her revolutionary lifestyle, it was through her romance that Mate found her path. "I didn 't know what us he was talking about, but I knew right then and there, I wanted to be a part of whatever he was"(142)."Like Dede, I just didn 't have the nerves for revolution, but unlike her, I didn 't have the excuse of a bossy husband"(240), Leandro was s supportive husband who let her follow what she believed in. She realized what freedom for a human being is. She realized it is the right to express the thoughts and live freely rather than being controlled by someone else. This revolutionary thought made her to abort her second baby, "So, if there really is no chance I’ll be out soon, than I want to release this poor creature from the life it might be born
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