Minerva, "In the Time of Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez

     From reading the first four chapters of this book I found that the strong character in the book is going to be Minerva.  I feel like she has a lot of strong and rebellious scenes that leads me to believe so.  She finds out from a young age at the school that Trujillo has killed her friends family for speaking out against him.  She learns of the hard ships that speaking out against the government can get you.  One seen that particularly stands out to me that shows how Minerva learns young about how the reality in her country is the one where Trujillo comes to her school to court one of the students there.  She had heard stories from her new friend she had made that he is really bad.  She starts to doubt a little bit with the love that is growing in her friend Lina towards the man.  However, she finds out that he is married and the wife tried to kill Lina and sent her away.  It wasn't the happy ending that she thought.
     I believe that Minerva being exposed to all these wrong doings from this one guy to the people around her causes her to dislike him a lot.  Also, being the strong minded and outspoken person she is she seems like she isn't just going to stand there and say nothing.  When he comes to the school to see a play that Minerva and three other girls put together about their country gaining its freedom Minerva decides to change it up.  She changes their costumes to mens costumes to make more of an impact because women weren't considered menacing.  She also changed the play to aim it at Trujillo.  However, her friend gets a little heated:  "But when we got to this part, Sinita kept on stepping forward and didn't stop till she was right in front of Trujillo's chair.  Slowly, she raised her bow and took aim.  There was a stunned silence in the hall."  The scene continues and Sinita almost gets herself in trouble but Minerva saves her by saying it was part of the play and continuing her lines.  I think this action by Minerva might get her in trouble later on.  We know that she dies on this day that the other two sisters dies but we don't know why.  Maybe it is because of something rebellious against the government and maybe Minerva gets in trouble for sticking up for one of her sisters.