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  • Essay / Faith and heroism: characters of the Mirabal sisters in The Time of the Butterflies

    The novel In the Time of the Butterflies, by Julia Alvarez, consists of a framed story told by the only Mirabal sister to survive Trujillo's reign, Dédé Mirabal . This story takes place in the Dominican Republic since 1938, up to the "present" time in 1994. Currently in the Dominican Republic, the country is led by a man named Trujillo, and he is doing the best he can. homeland a dangerous and horrible place. As young girls, the Mirabal sisters did not view Trujillo as a threat to them. They hear stories that he has lots of girlfriends and that Trujillo has people killed for him, but the ends only seem to meet once they grow up, get married, and have children. Patria Mirabal tries to put Trujillo's reign to the back of her mind, but soon discovers that as a child of God, she should fight for what she believes in and end the long list of sins that Trujillo has clerk. Patria uses her faith as a weapon to stay strong under Trujillo's rule because she feels she must fight for her son, her husband, her sisters, her children, and the people of the Dominican Republic. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Patria has an unbreakable bond with God because she trusts in His plans for her life, even though she has suffered many tragedies. Patria grows into a young woman and marries a man named Pedrito. She becomes pregnant and as her due date arrives, so does a dead child. In a moment like this, Patria could lose her faith in God because of this miscarriage, but that is not the case. She said to her mother: “It is the will of the Lord” (53). Later in Patria's life, at the age of twenty-four, she quotes God and says, "Build your house on the rock, do my will." And though the rain falls and the floods come and the winds blow, the house of the good wife will stand” (148). She then says, “I had built my house on solid rock, all right” (148). Here it seems that Patria is satisfied that God is blessing her, but the real test of whether she has faith in Him is when she goes on a church retreat and comes out alive after a bomb attack by Trujillo near his retirement home. The bombs explode and Patria thinks: “…His Kingdom was collapsing on the very roof of this retirement home” (161). This shows the true way Patria feels at that moment, an image of her Lord's Kingdom falling on her "crushing" her faith. Shortly after seeing a young boy the age of her child Noris get shot, she changes her mind. Patria says, “Coming down that mountain, I was a changed woman…I carried not only my child but also this dead boy” (162). Here, Patria's faith is restored knowing that not only do she and her unborn baby survive, but she knows that God is sending her the message to fight Trujillo and save her children. The bombing on the mountainside during the Patria Church's retreat helps her realize that she must fight for her country and her family because she knows that is what the Lord is for. was placed on earth. Patria realizes after the attack that she will not let Trujillo kill innocent people and his family, so she tells God, “I will not stand by and watch my babies die, Lord…” (162). It is at this moment that Patria decides to become a martyr against Trujillo's rule, and she trusts that the Lord put her here to do it, because she says: "As soon as I entered this room, I knew something had changed in the way the Lord.