In the Time of the Butterflies

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. Minerva dreams of being a lawyer. (Chapter 1)

2. She reveals that Trujillo killed many in her family. (Chapter 2)

3. She is pregnant with Trujillo’s baby. (Chapter 3)

4. Sinita points an imaginary bow and arrow at Trujillo and shoots him. (Chapter 3)

Short Answer

1. Decades after her sisters’ deaths, Dedé still does not feel part of the family of heroic revolutionaries. As a survivor, she is plagued by guilt over the magnitude of her sisters’ sacrifice and the international attention their heroism has generated. (Chapter 1)

2. She learns that freedom is terrifying and that the cage sometimes is more comforting. She compares the rabbit cage to her own home and understands how difficult it is to free a creature accustomed to imprisonment. (Chapter 2)

3. The term describes how at any public function in support of Trujillo, everyone pretends to support and even love the dictator. (Chapter 3)

4. She questions the existence and relevance of God because God does nothing to prevent the actions of the Trujillo government, and she considers the importance of joining the resistance to Trujillo. (Chapter 3)

Chapters 4-6

Reading Check

1. She suffers a stillborn birth. (Chapter 4)

2. She admits that their father has been having an affair. (Chapter 4)

3. Mamá changes her mind about Lio when she sees his name in a newspaper identifying him as a subversive Communist. (Chapter 5)

4. She wants to meet his other family. (Chapter 6)

Short Answer

1. In addition to seeing how God does nothing to address the conditions under Trujillo, Patria feels sexual urgings for boys when she tries to fall asleep. (Chapter 4)

2. The father is casual about the affair and says only that cheating is what men do. (Chapter 5)

3. Trujillo dismisses the idea of a girl becoming a lawyer and then makes an inappropriate advance that indicates he expects sex from her. (Chapter 6)

Chapters 7-9

Reading Check

1. She dismisses poetry as impractical and a distraction. (Chapter 7)

2. Trujillo’s daughter has no clue how immoral her own father is. (Chapter 7)

3. The neighborhood is celebrating Castro’s victory in Cuba, which suggests that the Dominican Republic’s resistance movement might succeed. (Chapter 8)

4. The box contains guns for the revolutionaries. (Chapter 9)

Short Answer

1. Minerva is sure Trujillo allowed her to complete her law studies but then denied her a license to practice law to spite her for rejecting his advances years earlier. (Chapter 7)

2. Mate disagrees with her sister’s fanaticism. She believes love is more important than the cause. (Chapter 7)

3. Patria witnesses the shooting of an unarmed boy by Trujillo’s secret police, and then she talks with her priest about the importance of ridding the country of the Trujillo government. Her pregnancy convinces her that she must join the movement for the sake of her children. (Chapter 9)

Chapter 10-Epilogue

Reading Check

1. She commits during an Easter sermon on Christ’s resurrection. (Chapter 10)

2. Trujillo uses the boy as a photo op and PR stunt when he announces the pardons of some political prisoners. (Chapter 10)

3. Trujillo, facing his approaching demise, complains that he has two problems: the “damn” Church and the revolutionaries. (Chapter 12)

4. Testimony reveals the sisters were beaten and then strangled by Trujillo’s agents. (Epilogue)

Short Answer

1. The unprecedented intervention by the Organization of American States into the affairs of a sovereign government indicates that the human rights abuses by the Trujillo government have become an issue outside the country, giving the resistance hope that Trujillo’s end might be coming. (Chapter 10)

2. Minerva’s husband tells her that his death is assured, and a cab driver comments that she and her sisters look sad on their way home from the prison. This adversity gives Minerva a fresh wave of determination. (Chapter 12)

3. Dedé realizes that she has a different role to play than her sisters: she is the survivor, the one who can share the story to prevent a new Trujillo. (Epilogue)