Isabel Allende Bibliography
Kahlil Algya
[In the following essay, Helsper demonstrates the ways in which The House of the Spirits appropriates conventional Western symbols of the family in Allende's vision of Chilean society.]
The family is a powerful symbol in Western society. Analysts from Engels (in his 1884 work The Origin of Family, Private Property and the State) to contemporary feminists have identified the institution of the family as one which perpetuates the limiting of sex roles and women's oppression. The dominant conception of the family since the eighteenth century's industrial revolution is that which Christopher Lasch uses as the title of his history: Haven in a Heartless World (1977). This double identity of the family is not lost on Allende, and, in fact, the message of her book revolves around the institution's internal contradictions. In La casa de los espritus, the traditional family as symbol is debunked and, simultaneously, the power of...
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the family-as-image is reclaimed for the novelist's Utopian purpose. The hope which Allende holds out for the future of her country is based on one other than the model of an accepting, loving family.
By failing to give first to Pancha, and then to Esteban Garca, the recognition due human beings, let alone blood relatives, Trueba contributes to the creation of an inhuman monster. When grown, the young campesino comes to ask his patrn for a recommendation to the Chilean police academy. While waiting in the library, he comes close to sexually molesting Trueba's other, recognized grandchild, Alba:
Se sent en una de las butacas de cuero negro y poco a poco atrajo a la nia y la sent en sus rodillas. Alba ola a Bayrum, una fragancia fresca y dulce que se mezclaba con su olor a natural de chiquilla transpirada. El muchacho acerc la nariz a su cuello y aspir ese perfume desconocido de limpieza y bienestar, y sin saber por qu, se le llenaron los ojos de lgrimas. Sinti que odiaba a esa criatura casi tanto como odiaba al viejo Trueba. Ella encarnaba lo que l nunca tendra, lo que l nunca sera.
Trueba of course, is wrong in saying that the memories brought back to him by the three human fingers he receives in the mail have nothing to do with his granddaughter. The fingers that he remembers are those he cut from the hand of Alba's father, Pedro Tercero Garca, in his rage over discovering that the campesino and Trueba's daughter Blanca were lovers. The boy who witnessed the event and who was later denied the reward promised him for leading Trueba to Pedro's hideout was Trueba's illegitimate grandson Esteban Garca. Now Coronel Garca, he, in effect, sends the message that he will finish the job, started years earlier by the patrn, of destroying one reminder of cross-class fraternizing.
Parallel to the legacy of cruelty, degradation, and revenge reviewed in the preceding paragraphs, La casa de los espritus posits another chain of events which constitutes a Utopian image of hope for the salvation of both the Trueba Del Valle family and for Chile. The novel picks up the story of this positive chain with Esteban Trueba's marriage to Clara Del Valle. Trueba starts forging his link of the negative chain with the rape of Pancha Garca, his part in the positive chain begins with his tender love for his new wife Clara. Although she disagrees with his world view and in many ways fails to conform to a traditional woman's role, he loves her. This ability to love someone very different from oneself is, in the final analysis, the major source of hope for society's redemption.
The next generation's link of love is forged by Blanca Trueba, daughter of Clara and Esteban, and Pedro Tercero Garca, the son of the peasant foreman of their ranch. Their love is so forbidden and so strong that it is associated with an earthquake:
En un instante (Clara) comprendi la causa del color del aura de Blanca, sus ojeras, su desgano y su silencio, su somnolencia matinal y sus acuarelas vespertinas. En ese mismo momento comenz el terremoto.
A veces yo iba al pueblo y volva con un veterinario que revisaba a las vacas y a las gallinas y, de paso, echaba una mirada a los enfermos. No es cierto que yo partiera del principio de que si los conocimientos del veterinario alcanzaban para los animales, tambin servan para los pobres, como dice mi nieta cuando quiere ponerme furioso.
She is loved by Trueba in spite of being the daughter of his enemy, just as she will love her child, most probably engendered by a rapist. After her release from the concentration camp, Alba writes:
Me ser muy difcil vengar a todos los que tienen que ser vengados, porque mi venganza no sera ms que otra parte del mismo rito inexorable. Quiero pensar que mi oficio es la vida y que mi misin no es prolongar el odio, sino slo llenar estas pginas mientras espero el regreso de Miguel, mientras entierro a mi abuelo que ahora descansa a mi lado en este cuarto, mientras aguardo que lleguen tiempos mejores, gestando a la criatura, que tengo en el vientre, hija de tantas violaciones, o tal vez hija de Miguel, pero sobre todo hija ma.
Alba also forms fraternal links with people who are not members of her biological family: in the women's prison she cares for other inmates' children as if they were her own and upon her release she is taken in and protected by a stranger. By the novel's end, following the footsteps of her grandmother, Alba has begun to forge a new model family which will include Chileans of all social classes and political tendencies. This family is the Utopian image which anchors the novel.
As the preceding examples have illustrated, Allende finds hope in the ability of people to love across social barriers. Another cause for optimism proposed in the novel is the superior resilience of love in comparison to hate. This latter emotion requires too much energy to maintain. When Trueba is taken hostage by the campesinos on Las Tres Maras, Pedro Tercero, now a government bureaucrat, comes to rescue his former patrn at Blanca's request:
El da en que mi abuelo volte entre los matorrales del ro a su abuela, Pancha Garca, agreg otro eslabn en una cadena de hechos que deban cumplirse. Despus el meto de la muyer violada repite el gesto con la nieta del violador y dentro de cuarenta anos, tal vez, mi meto tumbe entre las matas del ro a la suya y as, por los siglos venideros, en una historia inacabable de dolor, de sangre y de amor.
Knowledge and understanding are proposed as the necessary elements in conquering fear and hate, because only with these tools can one work to see that the chain of terror is interrupted. Alba writes:
La casa de los espritus is a novel of fantasy and of history. It recounts a sad chapter in Latin American history and simultaneously projects a Utopian vision into the future. Although its proposition is radical, the novel utilizes two of the most traditional images of Western culture: the family and the messianic child. Perhaps much of its power is derived from the use of these two ideas, which are deeply rooted in our collective psyche.
[In the following essay, Rehbein examines the order and content of the narrative in Eva Luna, showing the power of a storyteller to shape time and reality to suit her own needs as well as the needs of her audience.]
At first glance, the novel appears to be merely another first person account of someone's life: Eva narrates her life story. The first chapter provides background information on Eva's mother, Consuelo, who was orphaned and raised by monks and then went to work for various people; it also tells of Eva's birth. Already in this first chapter Allende introduces the key role played by story-telling and the concept of a reality made pliable and changeable through the use of language. Eva's mother. Consuelo, is clearly gifted with the magical powers of story-telling.
Mi madre era una persona silenciosa, capaz de disimularse entre los muebles, de perderse en el dibujo de la alfombra, de no hacer el menor alboroto, como si no existiera; sin embargo, en la intimidad de la habitacin que compartamos se transformaba. Comenzaba a hablar del pasado o a narrar sus cuentos y el cuarto se llnaba de luz, desaparecian los muros para dar paso a increbles paisajes, palacios abarrotados de objetos nunca vistos, pases lejanos inventados por ella o sacados de la biblioteca del patrn; colocaba a mis pies todos los tesoros de Onente. La luna y ms all, me reduca al tamao de una hormiga para sentir el universo desde la pequeez, me pona alas para verlo desde el firmamento, me daba una cola de pez para conocer el fondo del mar. Cuando ella contaba, el mundo se poblaba de personajes, algunos de los cuales llegaron a ser tan familiares, que todava hoy, tantos aos despus, puedo describir sus ropas y el teno de sus voces.
Ella (la mam) sembr en mi cabeza la idea de que la realidad no es slo como se percibe en la superficie, tambien tiene una dimensin mgica y, si a uno se le antoja, es legtimo exagerarta y ponerle color para que el trnsito por esta vida no resulte tan aburrido.
The second chapter begins with the life story of Rolf Carl, a young Austrian boy whose life develops parallel to Eva's. The narrator alternates between a chapter about herself and one about Rolf throughout the remainder of the novel until the last three chapters when their lives intersect and they fall in love. In subsequent chapters, the reader learns about Rolf's own involvement in story-telling through his use of film.
Escond la cara entre las rodillas, llam a mi madre y muy pronto percib su aroma ligero de tela limpia y almidn. Surgi ante m intacta, con su trenza enrollada en la nuca y los ojos de humo brillando en su rostro pecoso, para decirme que esa trifulca no era nada de mi incumbencia y no haba razn para tener miedo, que me sacudiera el susto y echramos a andar juntas. Me puse de pi y le tom la mano.
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