Similarly, at the end of Chapter 9, when Dede lies in bed tempted to “just let go,” she means that she is tempted to stop trying to maintain her sanity. She does show courage, however, when she lies and says she is Minerva Mirabel. She is afraid of losing her marriage and is afraid of losing her sisters. She acknowledges that it is a factor that prevents her from joining her sisters in their rebellious activities. Dede in particular struggles with her cowardice. The sisters are all aware of their cowardice as they perceive it, and while they sometimes fight for courage, in some cases they simply accept their cowardice. CowardiceĬourage is valued among the characters, and they display it in varying amounts. His own terror was a window that opened onto the rotten weakness at the heart of Trujillo’s system.” Though Minerva recognizes that the fear instilled in all the officers of the authoritarian regime is ultimately a “weakness,” for now it is what holds the regime in power. Minerva mentions that Captain Pena has given them permission to travel there, but a veiled threat is perceived in the officer who is questioning them: “The paroxysm of blinking made me pity the poor man. In Chapter 12, the theme of authoritarianism is clear when Minerva and Dede are brought into the police station in Monte Cristi. The authoritarian regime of Trujillo is linked to other dictatorships by Maria Teresa in Chapter 7, when she describes the march that she and the other women must participate in before the start of classes: “It looked like the newsreels of Hitler and the Italian one with the name that sounds like fettuccine,” namely, Mussolini. All of a sudden, “the dark fills with spies who are paid to hear things and report them down at Security.” In the first chapter, before the Mirabel family comes under any suspicion, their relaxing evening outdoors is ruined when Papa accidentally says Trujillo’s name in a less than flattering way. Even those citizens who are not suspected rebels are afraid to speak openly, since they cannot trust their own neighbors.

For instance, they must watch what they say since there are spies hiding outside their house. The novel portrays many instances of how the authoritarian state permeates life for the Mirabel sisters and the other characters. Much of the action of In the Time of the Butterflies occurs during Rafael Trujillo’s dictatorship in the Dominican Republic.

In the time of the butterflies book it