Classical Backgrounds to English Literature

In the Time of the Butterflies

Study Questions

• Think back to the sets of oppositions that we discussed when we read Sophocles’s Antigone and the other Antigone narratives (e.g., Lear, Another Antigone). Does Alvarez’s novel engage any of these same oppositions? Does it introduce any new ones?

• Recall how Henry defines tragedy in Gurney’s play: tragedy exists in a sense of the world’s injustice and in the fact that individuals have no free choice. How is this idea of tragedy illustrated in Alvarez’s novel? How does Alvarez further define this term?

• In what way might all four Mirabal girls – Dede, Minerva, Patria, and Maria Teresa – be considered Antigone figures? This is a question you’ll want to consider throughout the course of the novel – just answer it for as many of the girls as you can in this reading.

• The Hungry Woman introduced us to the idea of Medea as a warrior woman – a woman who has the strength to fight for what she believes in even at the risk of destroying those she loves or herself. In what ways might the Mirabal girls also be seen as warrior women? How does Alvarez’s novel bring together the images of Medea and Antigone? (This is another question you’ll want to continue considering throughout the course of the novel.

• In the first chapter, Alvarez speaks about the “mythologizers” of the Mirabal sisters. How does Alvarez’s novel demythologize the Mirabal sisters? And why is important to do so?