In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

Published 1994 · 112,370 words · about 6 hours at an average pace · Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

How hard is In the Time of the Butterflies to read?

In the Time of the Butterflies scores 30 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it relatively accessible. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 30 out of 100
Accessible English with Spanish words and Dominican cultural references.
Sentence structure: 30 out of 100
Abstraction: 32 out of 100
Concrete historical drama. Political questions arise from personal choices.
Information density: 42 out of 100
Rich with Dominican history, family dynamics, and political context.
Narrative indirection: 28 out of 100
Four rotating narrators. Dede's retrospective frame creates some indirection.
Symbolic density: 35 out of 100
Butterflies, the garden, and Trujillo's portrait carry symbolic meaning.
Ironic distance: 25 out of 100
Empathetic narration. The dramatic irony of knowing the sisters' fate provides distance.
Resolution withholding: 22 out of 100
The historical outcome is known. The novel's power is in the journey, not the destination.
Structural complexity: 32 out of 100
Four narrators across two time periods. Clear and well-organized.

How In the Time of the Butterflies is regarded

In the Time of the Butterflies holds a literary regard score of 67 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where In the Time of the Butterflies sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (207 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, In the Time of the Butterflies scores 58 out of 100. A second mythos, irony, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Low Mimetic
Everyone wants to buy a policy from the woman who just missed being killed along with her three sisters.
Symbol: Formal
Mariposa does not belong to herself alone. She belongs to Quisqueya!
Mythos: Tragedy iii (tragedy iii)
This is your martyrdom, Dede, to be alive without them.
Genre: Novel + Confession
Minerva gives you to me today for my First Communion.

Where the story of In the Time of the Butterflies takes place

  • The Dominican Republic under Trujillo, 1938-1960 (1938 to 1960), the main setting
  • Trujillo-era Dominican Republic, 1938-1960 (Ojo de Agua, Inmaculada Concepción, the capital, La Victoria) (1938 to 1960)
  • Aftermath, Trujillo's fall and Manolo's death, 1960-1963 (1960 to 1963)
  • Dedé's house in Ojo de Agua, March 1994

5 things that are true of In the Time of the Butterflies, with the passage for each

  1. Minerva slaps Trujillo in public at the Discovery Day dance.

    I can see my hand in an endless slow motion rise—a mind all its own—and come down on the astonished, made-up face.

  2. At the Office of Missing Persons an old man tells Minerva he gave all thirteen of his sons the same name to outwit the regime.

    In confidence, the old man tells me that he gave all thirteen sons the same name to try to outwit the regime.

  3. Trujillo owns loaded dice made from a piece of bone stolen from Columbus's crypt.

    He stole a piece of bone from Columbus’s crypt and had these made for me when I was named head of the armed forces.

  4. María Teresa and Minerva are each sentenced to five years and a fine of five thousand pesos.

    Five years and a fine of five thousand pesos for each of us.

  5. At the trial, three of the five murderers admit to killing one sister each.

    Three of the murderers did finally admit to killing one each of the Mirabal sisters.

Scenes in In the Time of the Butterflies that Frye would name

55 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Agon, untitled
I can see my hand in an endless slow motion rise—a mind all its own—and come down on the astonished, made-up face. Minerva's slap is the open contest with the tyrant.
Pathos, untitled
After they were done, they put the dead girls in the back of the Jeep, Rufino in front. Reconstruction of the sisters' murder and the staged accident.
Confession, untitled
Minerva gives you to me today for my First Communion. Mate's diary opens a sustained confessional register.
Pathos, untitled
Rufino and Minerva were on gumeys, Patria and Mate on mats on the floor. Dedé identifies and washes the bodies in the morgue.
Analogy of innocence, untitled
She remembers a clear moonlit night before the future began. The family under the anacahuita tree is the pre-fall idyll Dedé returns to.
Anagnorisis, untitled
Trujillo is having everyone killed! Sinita's revelation turns Minerva from believer in the Benefactor to opponent.

Books that share these scenes with In the Time of the Butterflies

About the author

Julia Alvarez