Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits: Sacrifices and Summary

Every family has a story to tell. The House of Spirits shares the epic tale of three generations of the Trueba- de Valle family told through the memories of the patriarch, Esteban Trueba and his granddaughter Alba. As an old man, Esteban looks back on the events of his past, the family’s ancestry, the history of his country and his family with loneliness, remorse, and forgiveness. Reading through the notebooks his mystical wife, the love of his life Clara, has left him with her passing, Esteban is able to understand things about the decisions he made which altered the course of not only his fate, but many others as well. Isabel Allende’s novel creates a complicated fictional world in which the Trueba family lives in a constant state of conflict over the cultural, political, class, economic, and spiritual struggles existing in the time and place they find themselves. Both the characters and reader are thrown into the life-long tumultuous situation which is the country and living environment in the house on the corner- the house of spirits. Although it is fiction, and personalities and circumstances may be exaggerated-no moment feels far from truth.

One of the most powerful messages the author sends in the novel is the alienation a family is able to feel, even for someone they are meant to love. Esteban Trueba begins his life as a poor man with an invalid mother and only his sister Ferula to support him. Ferula wishes to leave her terrible life caring for her mother. She is resentful and jealous of her brother, but he will not sacrifice the way she has. In order to become the rich and powerful man he dreams of being, Esteban goes to the country and seizes control of Tres Marias, land with peasants that leads to his financial success. Although the peasants of Tres Marias wish to be given their personal freedom in the form of wages as payment instead of Esteban controlling their food rations, he wants to be patron. Despite his own poverty stricken past, his new...