Alvarez through her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, shows the Mirabal sister’s power as they challenge gender limitations set on them by the patriarchal culture in the Dominican Republic to induce women not to be afraid to assert that part of themselves.
The most significant role the Mirabal sisters undertook were as revolutionary women’s that further challenged gender limitations as they, being women, spoke up instead of being silent. These revolutionary women: Minerva, Patricia, and Maria Teresa, showed their power by commencing the revolution against their dictator Trujillo thus changing the structure of the government and society. Dictator Trujillo inflicted the idea of men running the country and going to work, while women stayed quiet and at home. These oppressions and restrictions towards woman…show more content… As the sisters organized the underground attack against Trujillo’s regime they were given the code names of “Las Mariposas”, meaning the butterflies. Biologically speaking, a butterfly is a caterpillar that emerges from the cocoon and morphs into the sighted creature that it is. This transformation is not a quick and easy process; it takes effort from the caterpillar and patience as the change tends to take a while. Thus, butterflies are perceived as symbols of change and hope which highlights the symbolism of the Mirabal sister’s code name as the butterflies. Their code names emphasize the change that the Mirabal sisters, as women revolutionaries, were fighting for in their patriarchal society and the hope that others must have had maintained. The Mirabal sisters gifted other men and women with “hope… [and] with the [symbolic idea of the] transformation and the beauteous flight of the butterfly” (Allinson 220), which encouraged them to participate in the
