Alvarez tells the Mirabal sisters' stories through their own eyes. Patria, Minerva, and Maria Teresa narrate three chapters each Dede narrates three chapters and the epilogue, which briefly discusses the years between 1960 and 1994. In her postscript to the novel, Alvarez says she began writing the Mirabals' story to understand what gave them their courage to oppose Trujillo's brutal regime She asserts, though, that "the characters took over, beyond polemics and facts," and she began to invent them. Her use of multiple points of view allows Alvarez to create her fictional Mirabal sisters and to intimately explore the sisters' contrasting personalities. By creating fictional characters and situations out of historical people and events, Alvarez raises questions about the role of the novel in understanding the past.
In the Time of the Butterflies