Allysa Kehring - WS200 - Research Project Post - Isabel Allende

Isabel Allende has become a pillar of the Latin American writing community as both a women artist and a writer of distinction. She is extremely deserving of a fan page and of an acknowledgement for the great works she has created and published. Having received countless awards and honors for her work, Isabel Allende has reached readers within her home country and around the world.

Originating in Peru, Allende also has strong family ties to Chile as her father was a Chilean diplomat and her uncle, Salvador Allende, was the Chilean President. Numerous stories of Allende’s revolve around her own culture and the experiences she has had from her place within a family of power. Allende’s first novel, The House of The Spirits, was written during her exile from Chile after the assassination of her uncle. Having received numerous threats, Allende and her family found it to be too dangerous to continue a life in Chile and fled to Peru. The House of the Spirits follows many successive generations of a family in a South American country where they face political and personal battles and dilemmas. The novel began as a letter to her sick uncle, but eventually turned into a novel that was based off of Allende’s own memories of her life in Chile and the political issues they had to face.

Throughout the novel, The House of the Spirits, a theme of matrilineal control can be seen. The novel focuses on three generations of a family, but primarily the main characters of Clara, Blanca and Alba. The men and their children come secondary to these women. The novel goes into great detail on the ways and events that are purely woman in nature including child birth, emotional tragedies such as when Clara looks to complete her mother’s grave after learning of her decapitation, and passionate love such as that between Ferula and Clara. This theme could possibly have been used to show a cultural representation of how Allende views power in her home society. The men use ways of battle, destroying governments, and creating new reigns of power. The women in the story on the other hand use more subtle tactics such as when Ferula cursed Esteban to eternal loneliness, when Clara refused to speak anymore to Esteban or when Alba was proclaimed to inspire great love in all. While the men’s power is seen to be won and lost repeatedly, the women’s is constant. They are home. They are stable. They are the true power within the generations.

One quote of Isabel Allende’s that particularly stuck out to me was “We only have what we give.” I believe that she uses this ideal in her novels to affect her culture and give to her community what she sees from experience in a family of power. Through the theme of matrilineal control, Allende shows in her novel that the turmoils of home and political life do not have to always end in conflict. She shows that under an outward appearance of violence, the pillar of woman is supporting the family and that with this strength peace can be found.

References:

Lewis, Jone. “Isabel Allende.” About.com: Women’s History. 2009. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/writers20th/p/isabel_allende.htm.