Isabel Allende's The House Of The Spirits

985 Words4 Pages
In the House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende gives us a unique perspective look into the lives of several generations of the Trueba family. She writes the story in a way that makes the reader feel like they become like a family member themselves, like they are reading about their own family history. The story covers several generations’ loves, misfortunes, spirituality and political strife in the country in which this story takes place. The author writes from the perspective of several of the books’ Latin American characters during the turn of the century. The story covers the life of Esteban, the loves of his life, his rise to riches, and eventually his political downfall. The true love of his life was Rosa the beautiful. The author describes Rosa like a porcelain doll with green hair and yellow eyes (pg. 4) and there was something of the fish to her being between a human being and a creature of myth (pg. 5). Allende writes about Rosa as if she almost was a myth giving her qualities that couldn’t be possible in a human being. To her fiancée, she was the most beautiful creature until the…show more content…
Spirituality is one of the main themes in this book and centers around Clara. From her experience with Father Restrepo in the church to the weekly séances with the Mora sister, Clara is portrayed as having extraordinary abilities. Allende is vague and doesn’t go into specific detail in relation to Clara’s ability to see and speak with spirits; it might be because although Latin Americans worship the dead, they don’t actually believe in seeing and speaking with the dead. Another explanation is that Clara did in fact have a mental illness and it was felt that this ability was best kept within the confines of the house so as not to expose her mental
Open Document