Felty teaches English at Trident Technical College in Charleston, South Carolina. In the following essay, he explores Alvarez's stated objectives in In the Time of the Butterflies and the ways in which her characters fulfill these objectives.

In her postscript to In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez discusses her intentions in the novel. She says that she wanted to bring the story of Patria, Minerva, Maria Teresa, and Dede Mirabal to the English-speaking public. All of the Mirabal sisters except Dede rebelled against the dictator of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, and were murdered by Trujillo's men in 1960.

Alvarez seems to recognize that many people might take exception to her book, which fictionalizes the lives of the real Mirabal sisters. Alvarez is careful to point out that the work is not a biography. She says that the reader is not to perceive these characters and...