Analysis Of Isabel Allende's House Of The Spirits

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House of the Spirits is a novel by Isabel Allende that follows three generations of Trueba women-Clara, Blanca, and Alba-as they struggle against Esteban Trueba, the patriarch of the Trueba family. Allende's family was very involved in politics and because of this, there is a strong political underlay throughout Allende's whole novel. Emerged in a world of magical realism, House of the Spirits allows its readers to go on a wild journey filled with emotion.

Isabel Allende was born in Lima, Peru in 1942 but, after her parent's divorce, was raised by her mother in Chile. Isabel's father, Thomas Allende, was a diplomat and the Chilean ambassador to Peru. Her father's cousin, Salvadore Allende, was the president of Chile from 1970 until his assassination in 1973. After Salvadore's death, Isabel came to realize that it was too dangerous for her to stay in Chile so she fled with her husband and their two children to Venezuela. While in Venezuela, Allende was inspired to write House of the Spirits.

Although it is never stated as fact, the setting of this novel is understood to be Chile because the political history of the country forms part of the plot. The story opens with two of the Del Valle sisters in church. Clara, the youngest daughter, has many spiritual abilities and is therefore described as Clara the Clairvoyant. Rosa, the oldest daughter is strikingly beautiful with her otherworldly looks and is called Rosa the Beautiful. In the first chapter of the novel, foreshadowing is used when Clara's spiritual gifts allow her to see that there will be a death in the family. A few days later, Rosa dies, thus fulfilling Clara's prediction. Clara refuses talking for quite a while after her sister's death. When she finally ...

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...ff to Esteban Trueba in the morning. Alba and Esteban decide to restore their house and continue living as normally as is possible under the circumstances. Alba decides that to help herself cope she should write about her family. Her and Esteban find Clara's old journals and use them to write their family's history. Writing helps them both release their anger and need for revenge.

This novel had many underlying concepts but I believe the most pronounced one to be that the Trueba family represents Chile in the 1900s. As was once noted in an interview, Allende ""proposes the family as a model for her divided country: members of this family have oppressed, wounded, and tortured each other, but they are the same ones who must now heal one another. The family she posits is all of Chile." This novel really shows how, if we are united, we can accomplish anything.

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