La casa de los espiritus

Question 1

Isabel Allende: Writing Style 1

Answer 1

Magical Realism; the real is intertwined with the unreal, the present and absent are inextricably linked

Question 2

Origins

Answer 2

A conjunction of European and Native narrative traditions

Question 3

Non- particularization of the location

Answer 3

Allende’s way of gesturing to the general via the specific, of using Chile as a fable/ microcosm of Latin America’s history.

Question 4

‘exclusion of unrecognised ‘mestizo’ children”

Answer 4

This exclusion drives the novel’s narrative action

Question 5

Clara vs Trueba

Answer 5

Matriarch vs Patriarch

Question 6

Allende focuses on narratives of women

Answer 6

Traditionally unimportant vs the stories of men

Question 7

1963

Answer 7

Golpe de estado sesenta tres

Question 8

Change in narrative voice

Answer 8

to help the reader distinguish between the point of the narrative

Question 9

Ferrera

Answer 9

Represents social repression! Does not fufil any desires in her life other than pursuing friendship with Clara.

Question 10

Clara De La Valle

Answer 10

Daughter of Severo and Nívea de Valle, a woman with psychic and clairvoyant powers. She saw the autopsy of her own sister Rosa who’s death she felt coming; and after this she did not speak a word for nine years until she met Esteban Trueba again.

Question 11

Esteban Trueba

Answer 11

The son of Esteban and Ester, initially he is completely enamoured with Clara’s older sister Rosa del Valle, when she dies he goes to renew the hacienda called Las Tres Marias. He has numerous children with different women that he has raped. He later marries Clara.

Question 12

Blanca Trueba

Answer 12

Eldest daughter of Esteban and Clara. Grew up in love with Pedro Tercero who Esteban banned her from seeing. They met in secret by the river at night. She gets pregnant with Alba, eventually has the child whilst pedro is in hiding. Later she and her daughter escape to Canada with Esteban’s help.

Question 13

Pedro Tercero García

Answer 13

Having worked his whole life in the Tres Marias hacienda, he becomes a leading rebel of the Left wing workers movement. He is in love with Blanca; and they eventually escape to Canada thanks to the help of Esteban.

Question 14

Alba

Answer 14

Daughter of Blanca and Pedro

Question 15

Rosa De La Valle

Answer 15

Eldest daughter of Severo and Nivea; very beautiful and many ask for her hand in marriage. Finally she is promised to Esteban; and waits for him to return with a fortune earned in the mines. But she dies tragically after drinking poisoned Brandy.

Question 16

Jaime Trueba

Answer 16

One of Clara’s twins. Medical graduate, timid person, very patient. Profoundly in love with Amanda who was his brother’s lover. He helps her to abort Nicolas’s baby.

Question 17

Nicolas Trueba

Answer 17

The second of Clara’s twins. Very extroverted and spiritual. In a relationship with Amanda, but when he finds out that she has had an abortion he ends things with her. His father sends him to North American and we hear nothing more about his character

Question 18

Amanda

Answer 18

Has a relationship with the twins.

Question 19

Miguel

Answer 19

Alba’s ideal man; He saw Clara as a mother due to her attempts to educate him. He became a revolutionary and later a guerrilla. As a result they take Alba, torture and abuse her to get her to reveal Miguel’s location.

Question 20

Férula Trueba

Answer 20

A sad, melancholy person who dedicated her life to caring for her mother and has known little joy as a result. She finds friendship with Clara and moves to Tres Marias with them; but things turn sour between her and Esteban who seem to fight for Clara’s attention. Esteban kicks her out and Férula curses the family at which point things hit a turning point.

Question 21

Pedro García

Answer 21

Very well known by a lot of people for having a lot of wisdom. He dies surrounded by the deaf and blind as he tries to get rid of his cataracts.

Question 22

Pancha García

Answer 22

The first woman raped by Estebán Trueba and the sister of Pedro Segundo. She is the victim of many violations in that Hacienda. She tells Esteban García her son that if they had been born in Blanca’s place they would have part of the fortune. This is the root of the García Hatred towards the Truebas.

Question 23

Esteban García

Answer 23

one of the illegitimate sons of Esteban Trueba, that he fathered during the rapes he committed in Tres Marias. He sexually assalts Alba at a young

Question 24

Jean de Satigny

Answer 24

A french man who seeks to marry Blanca. He is the second person other than Clara to discover the relationship between Blanca and Pedro.

Question 25

Trancito Soto

Answer 25

A prostitute who Esteban met in a bar and borrowed 50 pesos from him with the condition that she return it when she had found her fortune in the big city.

Question 26

Clara Del Valle

Answer 26

Maternal figure

It could be said that she gives birth to the novel as it would not exist without her diaries and notes that provide coherency over what she refers to as the spaces in time.

The novel begins and ends with Clara’s notes from her childhood. She is the adhesive that bonds the Trueba family together and also provides the foundation of the novel.

Birds and cats, flowers and ghosts often surround her during the novel. She is at one with nature, the working people of Tres Marias and the more affluent white uppper classes, and also the spirits of the underworld.

Question 27

Secrets: Jean Satigny

Answer 27

A refined aristocrat; but are his intentions good or bad?

Clara is unable to uncover the secrets which he guards via her taro cards. Alba, the narrator does not corroborate any stories about him; and his body is unidentified in the morgue; which raises questions around his existence.

Question 28

Rosa’s death

Answer 28

the first example of a female victim harmed as a result of their relationship to a male. Both her and Nívea die as a result of Severo’s life choices; to pursue politics and to take the car instead of the train.

Question 29

Barrabás

Answer 29

Clara’s faithful dog; also serves as a warning r.e. bad news.

His death early in the novel foreshadows later violence.

Question 30

The novel was a smash hit

Answer 30

Isabel Allende was the first female writer to achieve notoriety within the genre of the new Latin American Novel

Criticism of the novel demonstrates sexism; people classify her her work as a ‘copy’ or rip off of Cien Años de Soledad.

It is much more mainstream and accessible than Cien Años

Question 31

In order for society to exist as it does

Answer 31

there must be people / groups of people that are oppressed.

Women and Workers are these two groups.

The book presents the marginalisation of these groups as de facto; this is how it is.

Question 32

Dominance of white middle class

Answer 32

creates an illusion of a united/ unified understanding of life, when really it is only as a result of oppression of minorities that society functions.

Middle class white perception of life is considered the norm

Question 33

La tradición y la propiedad

Answer 33

Esteban Trueba as a middle class male land owner; representing the values of the order, he equates capitalist values and represents the dominant class in society.

Question 34

Principles such as the law of god, law of nature, natural way of things, the way things are supposed to be, tradition, common sense!!

Answer 34

standards such as these are used to maintain control amongst the conservatives and preserve the old world order.

e.g. feminism is against the natural order

socialism is against the natural working order according to the dominant class

Question 35

The language used to talk about women is often the same as the language used to describe property and ownership

Answer 35

Link between Clara and Pedro Segundo; he hated this common ground that they had.

Question 36

Trueba who has been so sure of the reality of his world

Answer 36

is ultimately proved to be outdated, and he is the one living in a fantasy; where all his ideas are proved to be wrong