The Different Perspectives of Trujillo

In the first assigned read of In the Time of the Butterflies, Alvarez offers different perspectives of Trujillo that have a variety of differences such as age, political awareness, and vocation, yet all seem to converge to a unifying census regarding his dictatorship. At first, we are presented with Minerva's point of view, who has been presented as very politically driven and has an outspoken personality. At first, Minerva does not seem to dislike Trujillo, and has a high opinion of him, as we can see on page 17. It is not until her friend, Sinita, who has witnessed his cruelty firsthand, that Minerva was aware of his murderous actions that have led him into a position of power. As a different perspective in terms of age, we are introduced to Maria Teresa's point of view she Minerva reveals to her about her secret meetings and artistic expression of how she feels towards the president. As Maria is too young to truly understand, she later seems to side with her sister and friends as she agrees for her diary to be hidden along with other items in fear of the police finding them. We are also presented with Maria's views of the president, as she states, on page 53, that while she may not have been personally been effected by his actions, many people she knew have and she feels ill towards him. All of the different perspectives eventually lead each of the characters in the narrative to the conclusion that Trujillo is an indecent dictator and had done many things to assure his power is unmatched. In my opinion, having these different narratives that reach the same conclusion validates each of their stories. It is important to have more than one voice to avoid making the belief to be false or one sided. But understanding each of the sisters, and how they have come in contact with the dictator, either directly or indirectly, shows us that no matter how different the sisters are and what they used to think of the president, they all eventually agreed that his actions are monstrous and cruel. Through these inhumane actions, he was able to assume control of most of the Caribbean for for most of his 30-year-rule. He was also responsible for the massacre of 20,000 Haitians at the boarders.

Questions: Why is it important to provide different stories of each sister and how it led us to their perspective of Trujillo? 

How does learning about each individual story of the sisters help us understand what is going on in the story?