The+House+of+Spirits

Please write a brief response to the book in which you provide a quote that you consider interesting, puzzling, or provocative, and create a question based on that quote that might provide meaningful discussion. Remember to place the quote in context the way you would in a summer reading journal.

"To make a mistake is human, but to blame it on someone else, that's even more human." -William Shakespeare

Isabel Allende's //The House of the Spirits// is a truly inspiring read. It transcends generations and transports the reader to the beautiful land of Chile where the plot weaves from upperclass life in the city, to the trials of a strictly patriarchal hacienda, to the hopes and horrors of the Chilean Revolution. It is a story of society, change, family, and the transiant mysticism of love. The characters are all larger than life yet emotionally real giving them a fascinating other worldly feel in which they reside just barely out of our reach. The plot constantly switches between beautiful descriptions of life and love to stark portrayels of the often horrific acts of mankind making the book not only beautiful but sensational in its message of common humanity. Most of all I enjoyed how the book reflected the changes from conservative to progressive thinking over generations in the transition from feudalism to socialism at Tres Maria's. The first hint at this is seen in the passage in which Esteban states, "Anyone who saw Tres Marias in decline and who could see it now, when it's a model estate, would have to agree with me me. That's why I can't go along with my granddaughter's story about class struggle. Because when it comes right down to it, those poor peasants are a lot worse off today than they were fifty years ago. I was like a father to them. Agrarian reform ruined things for everyone." (51-52). So here is where the question lies: Was Esteban right in making this statement? Sure the people of Tres Maria's deserve independence but would they have ever been able to reach this sort of level of thinking without Esteban's help? Esteban built the school and enabled the people of Tres Maria's to live a life outside of the squalor in which he found them. Were they wrong to question and betray his leadership? Was Esteban that good of a leader at all or did he simply want to the people to live a life of enlightened subjucation? -Eliza Schultz

Isabelle Allende creates a most beautiful love between Blanca and Pedro Tercero. This love grows and changes as the children grow and change, and when the children develop into more complicated beings, the love is wonderfully catapulted into vast complex webs of harshly human connection, falling and spinning through the infinite space of the places in the universe where space is irrelevant. After spending a winter of developement apart, and joyously reuniting, Pedro and Blanca experience the beginnings of this tumultuous catapult. "... and suddenly Blanca saw it. It was a beautiful bay mare in the process of giving birth alone on the hillside" (146). This witness of the physical birth of the mare together represents their witness together of the love they share, and the beginnings of it's comlicated journey. Why can the colt, that they have seen being born, not get up? -Lillian Saul

In //The House of the Spirits//, by Isabel Allende, the storyline follows a unique family through three generations. At the beginning of the story, the character that stuck out the most strongly to me, was Rosa. Her astounding physical perfection foreshadowed her immediate death, as perfection doesn't exist. This led us to the complicated character of Esteban Trueba. Esteban was engaged to Rosa and through their separation of him being at the mines, we first begin to see Esteban's possessive attitude at his frustration of not being able to lay with Rosa. "[...] I was sick to my stomach the whole year round, even if I was frozen to the bone at night and dazed by the sun during the day, all with the single goal of marrying her, but she goes and dies on me, betraying me before I can fulfill my dreams and leaving me with this incurable despair" (36). Esteban grows up, briefly returning to live with his mother and sister before leaving to go to the land he inherited from his father called //Tres Marias//. So far, Esteban has lived his life in poverty and, after hearing yet again from his sister that the place is in ruins and that they should sell it, he responds with "[l]and is something one should never sell. It's the only thing that's left when everything else is gone" (44). //Tres Marias// becomes a symbol of wealth and empowerment, all of which Esteban quickly receives through his forceful and selfish ways. Esteban, who promises to marry because that is his mother's dying wish, ends up going to Rosa's house to see if any of her sisters were available. Clara, who has an exclusive personality, which is expressed in her direct communication to the spirits, is the last one available. "He did not know that she had seen her own destiny, that she had summoned him with the power of her thought, and that she had already made up her mind to marry without love" (90). This proves to bother Esteban his entire life through his love and his drive to possess Clara. This is ultimately when it becomes clear that a main theme in this book is Esteban's need for control. It can be seen in the way he treats his family and the peasants he employs. Another theme in this book is Love. In all of the couples throughout the three generations, besides in Amanda's and Jaime's, and somewhat in Esteban's and Clara's (because Clara stops talking to him through his violence), love endures all and is present in all the characters to at least one other character. Which relationships were clearly defined by love and how were they expressed? What are some non-physical examples? ~ Darby D. Davenport