Decentering the Dictator: The Mirabal Sisters' Outspoken Challenge Through In the Time of the Butterflies

Lecture Center 3A

I’m analyzing the role of speech in Julia Alvarez’s portrayal of the Mirabal sisters from In the Time of the Butterflies to argue that centering the novel around their speech and humanity decenters the dictator, who was often central to Latin American novels. My first chapter will provide background on the dictator’s characteristics to demonstrate how the Mirabal sisters’ speech cut through them. The four times the sisters encounter the dictator Rafael Trujillo in the novel, their speech decenters him because Alvarez emphasizes their experience. In the second chapter, I examine the gaps between each encounter, focusing on Minerva’s speech development towards resistant speech. I then examine the role of her family’s speech, particularly in terms of its protective role, which blurs the lines between the public and private spheres. In the final chapter, I analyze the implications of the Mirabal sisters’ speech in the Dominican Republic—which resulted in their death—and the implications of their portrayal in Alvarez’s novel. By emphasizing their speech and experience, Alvarez demonstrates the significance of women’s speech in political participation instead of simply reiterating the violence they faced. This ultimately is more productive as it encourages other women’s speech by demonstrating that any woman can exercise her speech politically.