Where It All Goes Down
Dominican Republic, 1943 - 1994
The novel takes place entirely in the Dominican Republic, starting in the Trujillo Era—when Rafael Trujillo was the dictator-president of the island nation—and ending about thirty years after his death when the country has finally established a democracy. The place is reflected in language and descriptions of the tropical countryside. The time period is absolutely dominated by Trujillo's personality… because he controls everything.
Trujillato
Rafael Trujillo ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until he was assassinated in 1961, the year after he ordered the Mirabal sisters' deaths.
The DR is small, with a current population of just over 10 million and an area only slightly more than twice the size of New Hampshire. This means that it was fairly easy for one guy to dominate the whole country. It was the law to have his photograph hanging in every home, and he hired people everywhere to report to the dreaded Security if they heard anyone complaining about him.
You can feel this fear in the novel. When Papá pops off with a remark about Trujillo when the girls are still little, check out what happens:
Suddenly, the dark fills with spies who are paid to hear things and report them down at Security. (1.1.66)
Of course the dark doesn't actually fill with spies; it's just that everyone suddenly becomes aware of the possibility of them, which is just as effective.
So it's not an exaggeration to say that the setting of In the Time of the Butterflies is permeated with El Jefe. All citizens, young and old, feel his presence constantly. Even if he isn't there in person, the fear of his presence is enough to keep everyone on their toes.
The Real Deal
Now's as good a time as any to talk about the fact that the setting is super important in In the Time of the Butterflies because it's real life. Alvarez writes in the epilogue about how the characters are real, but that she took a lot of liberty inventing personalities and memories for them.
While she has gotten some flak for supposedly not giving enough context, we can't help but think that the years, dates, mentions of real-life baddies and goodies, and historical facts that fill the book really do the context job right. The author defends her decision in the postscript, saying, "A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart." And the novel itself isn't the primary source, but history definitely forms a huge part of its setting.