What happens in Epilogue of In the Time of the Butterflies?
It’s 1994, and Dedé, the last surviving Mirabal sister, takes center stage as the narrator. She resides in the family home in Ojo de Agua, which now feels like a living shrine, greeting the steady stream of visitors eager to learn about her sisters. A journalist, known only as "the gringa dominicana," has come to interview her. Dedé shifts between the present moment of this meeting and the long aftermath she has lived since November 25, 1960. She reflects on the years spent raising her sisters' children alongside her own, the heavy reality of being the one who remained, and the strange burden of survival: she has become the guardian of their story, the woman who must remember for all. The chapter ends with Dedé stepping outside at dusk, watching the fireflies rise in the yard—a quiet moment infused with both grief and a sense of peace. Dedé doesn’t resolve her guilt; instead, she simply keeps going, as she always has, grappling with the question of why she alone was spared.
Analysis
Alvarez shapes the epilogue to reflect the novel's opening chapter, bringing Dedé back to the present tense and framing her interview in the same way as the beginning. This circularity isn’t comforting; it reveals a sense of entrapment. In earlier chapters, Dedé's voice mingled with those of her sisters, but here it stands alone. Alvarez uses this isolation to convey the true essence of surviving—not as a hero, but through a continual, ordinary endurance.
The firefly imagery in the final lines represents a deeply impactful choice. Throughout the novel, butterflies symbolize the sisters' spirits and their political significance (mariposas was their code name in the resistance). Unlike butterflies, fireflies are smaller and fleeting, illuminating briefly before disappearing. This shift indicates that Dedé’s connection to her sisters’ memory differs from that of the nation. While the nation embraces the myth, Dedé experiences the fleeting glow.
Alvarez also explores the contrast between public and private memory. The journalist's role positions Dedé's memories as a form of testimony, but the most powerful moments unfold in the silence between her responses—in what she leaves unsaid. The tone subtly shifts from almost procedural details (dates, names, household logistics) to something more lyrical as the chapter closes, reflecting Dedé's struggle between being an archivist and a grieving sister. The epilogue denies the comforts of elegy, focusing instead on the persistent reality of loss.
Key quotes from Epilogue
“I am the one who has to live with the dead.”
Dedé reflects on her role as the surviving sister, articulating the paradox that defines her entire existence after 1960.
“She is the one who must tell the story of her sisters, and in the telling, keep them alive—and keep herself from disappearing into them.”
The narrator frames Dedé's compulsive act of remembrance as simultaneously an act of preservation and of self-defense.
“The sky fills with fireflies, signaling their light, then gone, then lighting up again.”
The novel's closing image, in which fireflies replace the symbolic butterflies, marking the difference between national myth and one woman's private, flickering grief.