The Living Martyr

Through the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez took the tragic story of the Mirabal sisters and made it her own. She molded and developed the Mirabal sisters into relatable characters over the course of the novel as to make the deaths of Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Patria even more traumatic to the reader. Although Dede did not fight the regime with her sisters, she still suffered because of Trujillo. Even though Dede lived, she can still be considered a martyr because her life was altered by Trujillo’s dictatorship. To start off with, Dede’s martyrdom can be attributed to the sacrifices she made. Dede had to sacrifice her personal life. After the death of her sisters, there were six children that had to be raised. Dede and her mother stepped up to the plate and took the responsibility of caring for the motherless children. Dede raised Minou, Manolito, and Raulito and her mother raised Jacqueline, Nelson, and Noris. Dede also sacrificed her private life to people inquiring about her sisters (Alvarez 316). Every year when November 25th rolled around, television crews arrived, a celebration was held at the museum, and Dede gave obligatory interviews (Alvarez 3). All of them wanted to hear the heroic tale of the Mirabal sisters and inevitably forced Dede to relive painful past. She even wondered when she stopped receiving visitors recounting the events of that horrid night and when she became oracle (Alvarez 312). In these ways and many others, Dede made great sacrifices. Additionally, Dede underwent emotional struggles as part of her martyrdom. When her sisters would visit the men in jail, Dede would become a nervous wreck. On their last journey to the prison, Dede stood by the jeep preventing it from leaving. She told Minerva, “I’m going crazy with worrying. I’ll be the one locked up forever, you’ll see. In the madhouse.”(Alvarez 288) As a reaction to her sister’s death, Dede was paranoid of her relatives being on the road after dark. After her