Analysis Of Isabel Allende's The House Of The Spirits

While seemingly rambling, Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits is best explained with the words of Erin Morgenstern: “there are never really endings, happy or otherwise. Things keep going on, they overlap and blur… and there is no telling where any of them may lead.” The entire novel is a circle, ending with the same words with which it began. While there are a lot of examples of this throughout the novel, the most obvious are the relationships reflected over generations. Each woman in the Trueba family has a love story, either sweet and uplifting or unpleasant and depressing. This specific passage illustrates Alba and Miguel’s secret meetings and physical explorations in the basement of the house on the corner, and it imparts the engrossing
Allende uses simile, imagery, metaphor, and syntax to point out similarities between Alba’s relationship and the relationship of her mother. In the first sentence, Alba and Miguel are named simply as “the lovers” which reflects chapter five, titled “The Lovers”. This is intentional, as it immediately reminds the reader of other relationships seen in the novel, and sets up the similarities. Throughout the rest of the passage, Allende uses imagery abundantly to describe “their astonishing nuptial chamber”, depicting it with a mattress covered with “moth-eaten velvet”, with “topaz-colored damask curtains” as sheets, and a mosquito net made out of “the sumptuous dress of Chantilly lace”. This plethora of expensive objects that they surround themselves with is reminiscent of Esteban desires for the house on the corner. The connection between items and different lovers is highlighted by the description of their actions while in the basement. Allende writes that they “walked around stark naked”, which is again evocative of Blanca and Pedro since they spend their first
The prose in this passage is impressive in the way it flows, and the different uses of syntax and simile and imagery and how they fit together to perfectly capture one couple’s relationship and its connection to other earlier relationships. The impact that this passage had on me is the reason I started enjoying the book and actually became invested in the characters, and I think this is really indicative of what I have seen so far of Allende’s writing style. She writes about people, shifting the focus away from an elaborate plot, unlike so many other authors. Beyond the magical realism and different setting are people that readers can relate to. It is this empathy that she creates that makes her novel powerful; because people pay more attention to things they feel strongly about. Allende has created the perfect platform to tell people an uncensored story about what happened in Chile, and explain demonstrate politics and machismo and familial relations that all define this