Late Bloomer

We go from Patria's flamboyants to Dede's dark flowers in the span of only a few chapters. "When Dede next notices, the garden's stillness is deepening, blooming dark flowers, their scent stronger for the lack of color and light." A cursory look at the chapter's opening line might make the audience think something awful is going to happen soon, but I don't see these images that way at all. For one, these dark flowers are "blooming" - just beginning their lives as beautiful flowers - and secondly, Alvarez specifically mentions their "scent is stronger for the lack of color and light." Dede's moroseness has strengthened her character, perhaps even to the point of extreme bullheadedness, and the state of these flowers are entirely indicative of Dede's personality. Although a morose, resigned-acting character (hence the flowers dark colors), Alvarez is suggesting Dede is a late bloomer; unlike her sisters, whose defiant personalities were known even as children, Dede seems to be realizing the importance of uniqueness later on in life. It could even be argued that Dede's generally conformist attitudes are helping her remove herself from traditionalism - reflecting upon her sisters seems to inflate her with a vague sense of importance, as well as encouraging her to question why she didn't go along with Minerva, Patria, and Mate originally. Of course, there are still barriers for Dede to overcome, and whether she's able to break away from the traditional opinions women hold about themselves and are subjected to by others in the Dominican Republic is still up in the air. Afterall, Dede's "scent is stronger for the lack of color and light" - years of submissiveness have only made her more submissive and docile.

Her sexuality is particularly interesting, and sexuality as a theme complements the metaphor of a flower blooming in an overdone but blunt fashion. Alvarez wants us to take notice of Dede's dismal sex life. Though Alvarez approaches sexuality tastefully and subtly, it's still a focal point of each Mirabal sister. Dede is no different. "But in so many other things I have not changed, Dede thinks. Last year during her prize trip to Spain, the smart-looking Canadian man approached her, and though it'd been ten years already since the divorce, Dede just couldn't give herself that little fling." Proving herself to be much less Blanche Deveraux of "The Golden Girls" fame and more Mrs. Doubtfire, Dede's traditional views (and perhaps even more) prevent her from enjoying time with a man other than her former husband. It wouldn't be too far off point to say Dede is definitely the least sexually awakened character in the entire novel. On another note, you may call it a dirty mind talking, or me just looking too deeply into things, but Dede would have happened to be around 69 years old around the time this "smart-looking Canadian man" approached her. This is just another (most likely coincidental) facet to consider when looking at Dede's sexuality.

Dede is also being held back through close-mindedness. For example, Dede assumes her niece is uninterested and even annoyed at the idea of talking to the journalist about her mother. "Dede cringed. She had better cut this off. Unlike their aunt, the children won't put up with this kind of overdone gush." That's awfully presumptuous on the part of Dede, as well as clearly untrue. Dede seems to be the one imprinting her dislike of "overdone" gush onto Minou. "But Minou is chuckling away. "Come see us again," she offers, and Dede, forced to rise to this politeness, adds, "Yes, now you know the way." Whether through obligation or feeling guilty for assuming Minou's feelings, Alvarez's structurally rich writing lets us know Dede feels /something/, a hint that she is a deeper character than her passive personality might originally suggest.

Dede's husband is a constant influence on her mind even after their lives have gone in seperate directions. "It was as if the three fates were approaching, their scissors poised to snip the knot that was keeping Dede's life from falling apart." Alvarez's imagery has dual-meanings here. Although using the Three Fates from Greek mythology is nothing new in literature, especially where four sisters are concerned, the word 'knot' was chosen deliberately. Knowing how marriage-conscious the "docile middle child, used to following the lead" is, knot is an incredibly loaded word for Dede to use in a first-person narrative. The knot Dede refers to here strongly alludes to her marriage with Jamaito. While Dede wishes "a long look as if she could draw the young man of her dreams out from the bossy, old-fashioned macho he'd become" could change her husband, she's forced to deal with a progressively less understanding husband. Regardless, Dede's marriage, even if she does not see the marriage itself as idyllic, is seen as an anchor for the young woman - it's the only object in her preventing her from going along with whatever her sisters are doing. She'd be just as likely to follow along with whatever her sisters are doing if Jamaito, a strong male figure, was not in her life. That's just part of Dede's personality, submitting to people with loud presence or the ability to lead, a trait Dede lacks completely. I find it somewhat ironic that while Jamaito used to be the "young man of her (Dede's) dreams" - presumably, a gentle, passive young man - and Dede longs for the older Jamaito, Dede has gotten through life by conforming and submitting, not by complementing or sharing equally. Passiveness and submissiveness rarely complement each other well. Since Dede has a more submissive personality, Jamaito adapted over time to this, and strengthened Dede's docile streak. Machismo in Latin culture is commonplace, even encouraged, but unlike the Mirabal sister's parents, where the father was obviously the 'king of his domain' and the mother the equally obvious 'power behind the throne,' (also not all that uncommon in Latino marriages) the marriage between Dede and Jamaito lacks dynamics. Mr. and Mrs. Mirabal, for all of their differences, were a complementary couple. There is nothing symbiotic about Dede's relationship; it's one-sided and shallow, especially as the couple approaches middle-age. However, Alvarez places some of the blame - as well as a bit of quiet contempt - onto Dede for allowing herself be so compliant in her marriage. As much as Alvarez is writing In The Time of The Butterflies as a means of eulogizing and paying tribute to the sisters' deeds and positive traits, I feel like Alvarez is writing to point out that although the Mirabal sisters are wholly deserving of their status, they aren't inhuman or infallible. Just look at previous chapters, where Alvarez describes Mate's superficiality or Padria's religious and sexual complications. Celebrity may blind people to the truth behind the legend, but Alvarez does not shy away from depicting any of the characters' perceived flaws. It is Alvarez's duty as a journalist to present the truth as she sees it. It isn't her job to obsfucate. The characters in In The Time of The Butterflies are depicted as conflicted, and this is why Alvarez's writing is so effecting. For example, while "Dede had been ready to risk her life" that night the sisters drove along that "lonely road," Dede had her marriage to consider. Her marriage is essentially the only reason why she's still alive, and although Dede could have died a martyr alongside her sisters, it is martyrdom and the associated satisfaction but the thought of leaving her husband alone stacked against life, an unsatisfying marriage, and keeping the family together. Conflict at its most raw. Not even Dede in her 'old age' seems to know which decision would have been the most appropriate for her to choose.

Sister Doubt

Piety is pretty sexy, at least in the case of Patria.

Though In The Time of the Butterflies was written over ten years prior to the film, Patria is similar to the nun in The Crime of Father Amaro, the famously controversial Mexican film where a nun pleasures herself to the image of Christ. "I'd see those boys and think, Ah yes, they will come to Sor Mercedes in times of trouble and lay their curly heads in my lap so I can comfort them. My immortal soul wants to take the whole blessed world in! But, of course, it was my body, hungering, biding its time against the tyranny of my spirit." What kind of comfort is she offering here? The sexual undercurrent throughout the chapter - her "body, hungering," - is brazenly depicted. "I smelled her wafer smell and I knew I was in the presence of the holy," says Patria during her first meeting with Sor Asuncion. "My heart beat fast, scared and deeply excited." Is she describing a meeting with the headmistress of Immaculada Concepcion or the chance of getting into the former's habit? I'm just being crass with the second opinion, but taken out of context almost every sentence in the chapter could come straight out of an eloquently written erotica novel. Likewise, Patria's sensuality isn't limited to only men. Her sensual being manifests itself even in interactions with family like her sister Minerva, whom she asks to play with her hair. "Soon her gratifying fingering and her lilting voice would lull me to sleep again." The word 'fingering' generally has only one connotation, and it's a connotation Alvarez is fully aware and conscious of. She's a deliberate writer. Alvarez is a master at using commonly seen language to show, rather than tell, what her characters feel. In this particular case, though, I feel like Alvarez succumbed to cheapening her 'art' for the sake of . In a book full of simple but poetic language, the word 'fingering' is just too blunt, consistency-breaking, and, for lack of a better word, sophmoric. The rest of her novel is written at such a high echeleon that almost any lapse in quality is jarring to the audience. For instance, a reader might have only recognized the sexual component to Patria's chapter on a subconscious level previously, but they're certainly going to notice /something/ when they see Patria's behavior towards Minerva. It's just that obviously. I feel like Alvarez prefers subtlety over bluntness , but now I'm being presumptuous. Maybe Alvarez intentionally threw that word in to make the audience realize what they've really been reading the whole time; to make us feel the same dirtiness or perverseness or shame that Patria surely feels for "hungering" even as a pious young woman. It'd be audience participation at its finest if this was the case. Feeling exactly as Patria feels, the struggle which "came in the dark in the evil hours when the hands wake with a life of their own."

Despite whatever connotations the language in this chapter may have, I don't think that Patria is necessarily a sexual being, so much as an incredibly sensual one. She's just incredibly passionate about her calling. Since it would not be acceptable for a young woman in her station to display overt desire, And then we have all the instances of the color red popping up in Patria's chapter - from the "brilliant red flames" of the flamboyants, to the "plush crimson cushion" in Sor Asuncion's office. (As an aside, the individual petals of a flamboyant are butterfly-shaped, which cycles back to the title of the book.)

Beyond the sensual content of Patria's chapter, she infuses her language with veiled references to BDSM. "They saw the pains I took keeping my back straight during early mass, my hands steepled and held up of my own volition, not perched on the back of a pew as if petition were conversation." Pleasure is pain. Servitude, too, is depicted as being a kind of divine pleasure for Patria. The lines between serving Christ and serving your body are totally distorted and blended together here. In fact, Alvarez almost suggests that Patria's sensuality manifests itself through religious service in an incredibly coquettish, unconfident fashion. Further parallels could be drawn to Marquis de Sade's (how appropriate) work "Justine." Though the titular character is the pinnacle of piety, at least in her mind, she is subjected to desolute horrors - such as being taken in by a group of monks and raped repeatedly by all of them. However, despite the abuse brought upon Justine throughout the novel, she refuses to give in due to self-righteousness, and by the end of the novel is a broken husk who no longer believes in God. Sade even suggests that, had Justine indulged sin for a brief time at the beginning of the book, that she would have been able to ultimately live a pious life by the end - according to Sade, one needs to know sin in order to know the light. Knowing what it's like to indulge in sin strengthens one's faith. Though Patria hasn't seen any of the abuse Justine did, the two characters are similar because their self-righteousness prevents them from knowing what they are preaching against. Bullheadedness can lead to a character's downfall just as easily as indulging in too much sin could; in many ways self-righteousness is even a sin in and of itself. Ultimately, however, Patria is a character of dualities, like many of the works we have read previously.

I feel like Patria has something of an inferiority complex. She needed Sor Asuncion to reassert her faith, that she had what it takes to become a nun; like she needed permission even though it has been known to us since the first chapter that Patria's self-confidence makes her feel superior to most people she comes in contact with. "It was after my conference with Sor Asuncion, once I had begun praying to know my calling, that suddenly, like a lull in a storm, the cravings stopped." Why did Patria's "hungering" stop after Sor Asuncion reassured her potential? It's almost as if . For all of Patria's self-righteousness and confidence, there are aspects to her character which are just as vulnerable and as insecure as a child. She's outwardly independent yet needy simultaneously. By relying on others - God, the Sor, her fiance - Patria is able to reassure herself of her own identity. It's the mother archetype brought to extremes.