In "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez, the author employs a repetitive theme of entrapment concerning the famous myth of the Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic, also known as La Mariposas. One example used by the author is the feeling of captivity the sister Minerva feels by her constricting home as a child. Another example is how the Mirabal sisters, under the pressures of an authoritarian dictatorship, felt confined by society and the physical entrapment the Mirabal sisters endured during their imprisoned time. The key and most essential example of entrapment in the biographical fictions has to be Dede Mirabal's inner-captivity that consumes her throughout the novel. In this novel, Dede goes through a personal prison while struggling for her identity, but eventually grows into. This magnificent ending serves as proof of Dede's liberation, epiphany, and revelation.

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             "In the Time of the Butterflies" takes place in a time in the Dominican Republic where the country was governed by the cruel hand and tyranny of the dictator General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Alvarez illustrates the country in a sense that it is a nation of captivity and security. The people of the Dominican Republic are under watch so intensely that feel as if they can't even speak freely in the privacy of their home, let alone backyard, "the dark fills with spies who are paid to hear things and report them down at security." (pg. 10) One can imagine how trapped and contained a Dominican Republic citizen felt. In the Time of the Butterflies discusses the Mirabal sisters and their lifestyle as they were trapped in this country. The sisters were all revolutionaries, with the exception of the second eldest sister Dede Mirabal. Dede, the only Mirabal left, who has buried the rest of her family, is the one character who seemed to never have been outspoken or focused on liberation, even after the death of her sister or the fall of Trujillo's reign.