The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende - Essay Example

?The House of the Spirits (Isabel Allende) The House of the Spirits is a novel written by a contemporary Latin American novelist, Isabel Allende, born in 1942 in Lima Peru. However, she is a Chilean. The House of the Spirits was first written in Spanish language in 1982 before being translated into English in 1985. It is Allende’s first book. The novel has also been released in form of a film and is based majorly on Allende’s life experience, and political events that took place in china then (Zapata and Peden, 2002 p.41-122). It is a prime representation of magical realism as it is characterized by simple and straightforward staging of unique magical events. The magical realism qualities in this case are brought out in Clara one of the Characters in the novel. Nevertheless, for what purpose does Allende attribute magical realism qualities to Clara in this novel? To understand this better, the essay will explore reasons as to why Allende attributed magical realism qualities to Clara. Clara-Severo is daughter to Nivea del Valle’s, wife to Easteban and Blanca, Jaime and mother to Nicholas. She is the key female representative in this novel and is the link between del Valle families and Trueba. She is also portrayed as a clairvoyant and intermittently attentive to domestic work. She however holds her family together through her expression of love and prophesies (Zapata and Peden, 2002 p.41-122). Clara’s magical realism is shown by the manner she keeps quiet. This makes people around him wonder to an extent that they call for a doctor to examine her condition. This is seen when Severo and Nivea call for a doctor to establish why Clara has all over sudden stopped talking. When doctor Cuevas comes in, he does his examination but is unsuccessful. They proceed to Rumanian Rostipove who does all sorts of magic to cure Clara (Axelrod-Contrada 2010 p.49-86) He however establishes that Clara’s only problem is that she is not feeling like talking. Nana then comes up with a strategy that the only way to force her to talk is to frighten her to the extreme so that she can cry out for help. These attempts are all thwarted as Nana’s attempts only succeed in making Barrabas nervous wreck. The worry continues at school forcing teachers to send Clara home so that she can be taught at home. Her magical realism is also shown by the fact that she portrays herself as an avid reader and starts a lifelong of writing innumerable notebooks just from her private observation (Jenkins 1994). This can be viewed as a subservient gesture. From this form of magical realism shown through Clara, Allende is trying to show that women do not need to make any drastic break with their tradition for them to be independent. Clara’s refusal to speak at first, which is motivated by fear of her words power, also reveals self-assertion. This is because, traditionally, women are meant to submit their voices and judgments to men that Allende is trying to reveal (Axelrod-Contrada 2010 p.49-86). Nevertheless, as the Rostive reports, Clara does not feel like talking simply because she does not feel like (Axelrod-Contrada 2010 p.49-86). However, when she does so, she does it magically by announcing her intention to marry Esteban. Once more, her marriage is quite traditional. In fact, Clara is the first to reveal her intention to marry Esteban who is shy of speaking out despite admiring Clara. In this case, Clara uses simple words. For instance, she makes use of the word “will” occasionally (Axelrod-Contrada 2010 p.49-86). She understands that it is fate that makes her do so and does not mistrust her intention either. However, Esteban does not know that Clara’s intention of marrying him is out of what she has seen of her destiny and not love as Esteban thinks (Jenkins 1994). Here The message that Allende is trying to pass across through magical realism of Clara’s marriage is that not all marriages comes as a result of love between couples. Instead, some just happen because one individual of either sexes has a particular interest in the marriage other than love. This is what happens between Clara and Esteban. Since Clara has no mistrust of her intention, we find that despite being battered by her husband, she stayed put until Esteban’s death. Clara is a character portrayed by Allende as one who barely understands the material world around her (Axelrod-Contrada 2010 p.49-86). Allende notes that Clara has a lot of interest on talking to the spirits and in most cases pays more attention to daily events such in domestic chores under extreme circumstances. This is a reflection of the world’s reality. For instance, despite the fact that Clara does not want to perform certain domestic chores, she is forced to do so under extreme situations (Smoop 2010 p. 17-20). This is a reflection of the world that Allende is trying to portray through Clara. The message that Allende is putting across is that, in life, extra-ordinary situations calls for extra-ordinary measures. For instance, an individual may not be at a position to run or do something out of sheer will but an event may sometimes call for action to remedy the situation. Clara is also described by Allende as a character that is floating through the world, which is magical. This mainly refers to Clara’s literally ascend, but towards others it reveals the way Clara is able to ignore so many things that she does not want to deal with (Jenkins 1994). In case she if faced with such situations, she moves, alter in a quiet, subtle manner even though it appears similar on the outside, and transformed in entirety (Allende and Bogin 2005 p.21-46). From this kind of magical realism, Allende is trying to show the world reality, as people tend to make choices with regard to what they want to deal with and ignore those, which have no impact on their lives. Clara is also shown as a prophet and can predict what is about to happen. For instance, all the time we find her communicating using a chalk (Wilkinson 2008 p.151-196). At some time when the Honorio who is the gardener in the novel tells her of his dream he had the previous night, Clara is able to interpret what the dream mean successfully to Honorio, something that helps her win “eighty pesos gambling.”( Smoop 2010 p. 17-20). This is a true reflection of what is happening in the world. There are some prophets in the world who are capable of interpreting an event or dream which Allende is trying to show through Clara’s Magic. In fact, after the event, this news spread very first across the village that in a short time, almost everybody was now asking for Clara to interpret their dreams. Here, Allende is trying to show how certain news that affects people’s lives always spread very first. After interpreting the dream, Clara’s magical predictions extended beyond to an extent that she could now predict even deaths, play piano with its cover down, and read cards. This magical representation serves purpose of informing people that, in the world, there are people with unique abilities capable of predicting events that happen (Martin 2010 p.23-77). Allende also reports that Severo is not pleased with her daughter’s acts of predicting events and doing supernatural things and forbids her of using her powers. Nevertheless, this only served to reverberate Clara’s activities until Nivea intervenes and give her free rein. After these happenings, Clara develops close friendship with Nivea accompanying her everywhere they go be it sewing or suffragist protest (Allende and Peden 2005 P.26-33). The fact that Clara’s father is not pleased with her daughter’s powers is a reality that Allende is trying to reveal. Under normal circumstances in the world, it is not common to find a parent consenting to acts, which looks more of supernatural to be done by their children. This is so because, in most cases, the society tends to associate such people with witchcraft. This explains why Severo is not pleased with what he is seeing with her daughter. The fact that Clara resists such attempt of stopping her from carrying on with her activities is also a true reflection of the world as it is not that easy for an individual to just accept leaving what he or she has been doing. Nivea in this case some the purpose of a family arbitrator. In this case, Allende is showing that in a family set up, when a conflict arises, somebody should always be able to come in and arbitrate the warring parties. For instance, in Chile where the novel was written, in case diplomacy could have been used between the warring factions, the coup could not have taken place. Thus, this is a show of importance of diplomacy in the world (Allende 1986 P14-54). Allende also asserts that Clara’s characters did not remain the same, as they were when she was still a young girl; instead, it kept on changing as she grew up (Forman 1995). In this case, she kept leaving certain characters that she had when she was still young. From this magical transformation seen with Clara, Allende is trying to reveal transformational stages in life. For instance, when one is a child, he behaves like a child by doing childish things. However, as one grows up, he learns new things in life and leaves childish things. This is a reality shown in form of magical characterization in Clara (Allende and Bogin 2005 p.21-46). The fact that Clara has magical powers and can even move objects using his mid makes him lonely as many of his friends are scared of him. However, Allende is trying to show how much people are always scared to those perceived to have magical or witchcraft. This is why Clara has no friends (Smoop 2010 p. 17-20). In conclusion, Allende has attributed magical realism qualities in Clara for the purpose of showing and educating people of the world’s reality. Clara’s magical characters in this include communicating with spirits, being able to predict events, interpret dreams, floating through the world, and being silent out of her own wish. She also decides to get married not because of love but out of fate. Finally, she changes as she grows older and becomes a woman. This form of magic are quiet educative of the world’s reality as brought out by Allende. References Allende, I., & Bogin, M. (2005). The House of the Spirits. New York: Everyman’s Library. Allende, I. (1986). The house of the Spirits. New York: Black Swan. Axelrod-Contrada, J. (2010). Isabel Allende. New York: Marshall Cavendish. Allende, I., & Peden, M.S. (2005). Of Love and Shadows. Washington, DC: Dial Press. Forman, P.G. (1995). Past-on Stories: History, Ontology, and the Magically Real--Morrison and Allende, On Call: Accidental College. Berkeley Electroni press. Jenkins, R.Y. (1994). Authorizing female voice and experience: Ghosts and spirits in Kingston's The Woman Warrior and Allende's The House of the Spirits. Fresno: California State University , MELLUS, Vol.19 Number 3. Martin, K.W. (2010). Isabel Allende’s House of the Spirits trilogy: narrative geographies. New York: Boydell Brewer. Shmoop (2010). The House of the Spirits: Shmoop Literature Guide. New York: Shmoop University press. Wilkinson, M.L. (2008). Antigone’s daughters: gender, family, and expression in the modern novel. New York: Peter Lang. Zapata, C.C. & Peden, M.S. (2002). Isabel Allende: life and spirits. University of Houston, Texas: Arte Publico press. Read More