Magical Realism In "The House Of The Spirits"
Uploaded by sls465 on Apr 18, 2007
Magical Realism In "The House Of The Spirits"
In The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, the story of three generations of a family is told. The story begins with Clara del Valle as a girl who eventually marries Esteban Trueba. They have a daughter, Blanca, who gives birth to her own daughter, Alba. All of the women are found to have unusual abilities and strength. Clara is able to interact with spirits and demonstrates a growing proficiency for telekinesis throughout her life. Blanca inherited some of her mother’s clairvoyant abilities and was able to see the spirits, although she never spoke with them. Alba too was able to call upon the spirits, although she generally did not interact with them. Pedro García, however, also had unusual abilities to set a skeleton of bones while blind and to rid the hacienda of a plague of ants. Throughout the novel, Allende describes both the magical aspects and harsh realities of the lives of the Trueba family as the country shifts from a stable oligarchy ruled by rich conservatives to a chaotic dictatorship ruled by the military. Interweaving of the actual and the supernatural, bizarre and the commonplace, and improbable and exaggerated characterization and psychologically motivated behavior all exemplify how Allende was able to establish magical realism throughout the tale.
The actual and the supernatural were very prevalent in the story. One instance of an actual problem the hacienda faced is when ants began to overrun the hacienda. The ants had completely infested the hacienda and were eating everything. To resolve the problem, Esteban Trueba called an agricultural technician to help him exterminate the ants. “… ants… quickly became a dark shadow that glided everywhere, devouring everything in its paththe corn, the wheat, the alfalfa, and the marigolds…Esteban introduced him as… Mr. Brown… an agricultural technician specializing in insecticides…” Unfortunately, the agricultural technician said he would be unable to exterminate the ants in less than a month, at which point Pedro Segundo García suggested they call his father, Pedro García, who might be able to produce a more magical solution in less time. Pedro García picked up some of the ants and began speaking to them. He told them they were a nuisance at the hacienda and had to go. He then showed them the way to the highway. “…he had led the ants to the edge of the highway… the next...