Final evaluation

1
Final evaluation

• The House of Spirits
• Isabel Allende

2
Socioeconomic interpretation of the novel

• The Latin American mindset understands reality as
  having multiple sides.
• Politics in Latin America has manipulated and
  distorted the life of individuals. The reader
  observes this by looking at the discrepancy of
  wealth and social status that define each of the
  characters in the novel.
• only a group of privileged ones, such as Del
  Valle family, lead a life of leisure and comfort.
• even the middle class has difficulties
  surviving. For example Esteban Truebas mother
  and sister.
• the poor urban neighborhoods are also painted in
  the novel with realist details.
• Allendes purpose is to document such a tragedy,
  which is evident in Chile and many other
  countries.

3
Historical interpretation

• Allende does not present the military coup and
  the political events of the 1970s in an isolated
  and disconnected way, but rather, she starts from
  the roots that will lead us to the countrys
  social structure today.
• Allende provides meaning for the events by
  covering a long period of time and by following
  the story of various families throughout
  generations. The past is brought towards the
  present and is maintained alive.
• By preserving memory and past, the truth wont
  disappear, hence the importance of Claras
  notebooks and Albas memories.
• Clara and Albas writings, and the novel itself,
  illustrate the importance of knowing the past and
  not forgetting it, as Esteban has done.
• Like history, the novel is not organized nor
  logical it cannot be fixed into dates and times,
  and it depends on innumerable factors. Allende
  often reminds the reader about the connections
  between past and future, between fiction and
  non-fiction.

4
Philosophical interpretation

• Allende hopes for a more peaceful and
  equalitarian tomorrow for Chilean citizens and
  all Latin America.
• With time, social and class barriers will
  disappear through marriage and new relationships.
  The three main family groups in the novel mix as
  the author searches for harmony and change.
• Claras son, Jaime, becomes a doctor and lives
  among the poor.
• Blanca marries Pedro Tercero and both move to
  Canada.
• Albas boyfriend, Miguel, is not from her social
  class (nor has the same political antecedents).
• After the earthquake, Clara becomes a very good
  friend of Pedro Segundo. The former predicts the
  fall of the feudal system.
• Esteban has to form an unusual alliance with
  people outside his social and political doctrine
  to ask for help for Alba.
• The novel ends with Albas optimism, forgiveness,
  and hope for the baby inside her.

5
How is the novel construed?

• The House of Spirits is built upon contrasts.
• Allende presents a world where reality is
  ordinary and magical. Allende moves back and
  forth between these two types of realities. For
  example, after setting the Del Valle family in a
  typical Sunday mass, the narrator mentions that
  Rosa has green hair.
• Like the author, the characters have no problem
  with such dual vision of reality. For example,
  Claras ability to move objects is part of the
  characters daily routine.
• However, the two political perspectives in the
  novel do not easily reconcile.

6

• Unlike Esteban García, Esteban Trueba is capable
  of loving, although he is sometimes blind to
  other peoples needs.
• He tolerates Claras peculiarities he welcomes
  pregnant Blanca in his house again and he feels
  so close to Alba that he is determined to rescue
  her, no matter how radical the cause she
  defends is.
• Towards the end of the novel, Esteban Trueba
  changes his mind about politics, maybe because of
  his disillusionment with the new regime, or maybe
  because of the influence of all these liberal
  women.
• His literary collaboration with Alba represents
  not only a personal and political reconciliation
  but also a fusion of old and young, of
  conservative and liberal ideas, and of the
  masculine perspective and the feminine one. All
  this suggests that there exists hope for the
  future.

7
Magical realism and the novel

• Magical realism is mixed with politics.
• When the Trueba family gets involved with the
  violent confrontations between oligarchs and
  socialists, the magical submerges and the real
  emerges to illustrate political brutality and its
  power to disintegrate families.

8
Hope and writing

• Albas baby incarnates hope for a future of
  reconciliation and love, and so does the act of
  writing.
• Language and words have the power to recover what
  is lost and to recreate lives and stories, real
  or invented ones.
• Isabel Allende goes beyond national borders with
  this lyrical story full of imagination set in a
  turbulent political scenario.
• Allendes novel represents a complex, universal
  world, full of love, hate, death, and time.

9
Last words

• The narrative makes the reader to reject
  dictatorship and any type of abusive power at all
  levels.
• Sexism, which is directly related to abusive
  power, is represented by Esteban.
• Panchas grandson, Esteban García, is a monster
  created by the tirannical, patriarchal system
  incarnated by Esteban Trueba. He takes revenge on
  Alba and, ironically, he gets poetic justice when
  tyranny turns against Esteban.
• Allende believes that race, genre and class
  conflicts perpetuate hate and violence, and turn
  victims into aggressors.