Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The House of the Spirits, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Class, Politics, and Corruption
Women and the Patriarchy
Magic and the Supernatural
Love
Family
Writing and the Past
Summary
Analysis
Clara is 10 years old when she decides to stop speaking. Severo and Nívea call Dr. Cuevas, but his failed treatments only manage to terrify Clara. Finally, Severo and Nívea take Clara to see a Rumanian magician named Rostipov, who tells them that Clara does not speak because she doesn’t want to. Clara’s parents are forced to remove her from the convent school where all the del Valle girls were educated, and she begins homeschooling. She is especially interested in reading: she reads all of Marcos’s old books and Severo’s Liberal Party pamphlets. She also writes diligently in her notebooks, which, Esteban narrates, is a good thing, since he will later use the notebooks to reclaim Clara’s memory.
Esteban’s interjection again underscores the importance of recording the past, since all of Clara’s early life would likely be lost to him and future generations of her family had she not written it down. In this way, Allende implies that history would also be lost without personal narratives, which further suggests that stories contain more truth than official history. A Rumanian is someone of Romanian descent from Southeastern Europe. Romania, where Transylvania is located, has a rich culture rooted in Gothic style and mystery, which is reflected in the magician Rostipov.
Themes
Clara has a knack for interpreting dreams, and she can foretell the future and intuit people’s intentions. She predicts earthquakes and unusual weather, and warns Severo when a business partner plans to swindle him. Severo, however, doesn’t listen, and he is relieved of half his money. Nana believes that Clara’s powers will resolve when she begins to menstruate, but that milestone comes and goes, and Clara’s powers only grow. Severo forbids Clara to predict the future or talk to ghosts, and Dr. Cuevas recommends cold baths and electric shocks, the accepted treatment in Europe for insanity.
Severo clearly doesn’t respect Clara’s abilities, which is why he doesn’t heed her warnings about his dishonest business partner. Clara’s powers strengthen as she grows up, which implies that although women are relatively powerless in society, they still possesses inherent strength in other ways. Throughout history, insanity has long since been a way for patriarchal societies to oppress and control women. Women seen as abnormally strong or different were often accused of insanity and locked away in institutions, where they were further tortured with ineffective treatments like electroshock therapy.
Themes
Barrabás follows Clara everywhere, and if Clara isn’t foretelling the future or knitting (the only domestic skill Clara masters), she is listening to one of Nívea’s many stories of their family’s past. Nívea points to old pictures of dead relatives and tells little anecdotes, like those about Clara’s uncle, who accidentally farted in public and was forced to leave the country in humiliation. He went to Easter Island to minister to the lepers and was never seen or heard from again.
Nívea’s stories dovetail with Allende’s argument as to the importance of preserving the past. Because of Nívea’s stories, the past is alive in Clara, and the reader knows that Esteban will one day use Clara’s own writings to make sense of her memories. Without such personal anecdotes, much of the del Valle family’s personal history would be lost. Additionally, the fact that Clara only masters knitting suggests that she doesn’t live according to society’s sexist expectations—if she did, she would likely master as many domestic skills as possible.
Themes
Nívea takes Clara to the city tenements to give food and clothing to the poor. Other times, Nívea takes her to stand on soapboxes with Nívea’s suffragette friends. Later, Clara writes in her notebook how absurd it is that her mother and her friends speak of oppression and equality while wearing fur coats and suede boots. Time passes and Clara grows into a young woman, and one day she finally breaks her silence. Clara tells her parents that she will soon be married to Rosa’s fiancé, Esteban.
In the early days of women’s rights, suffragettes like Nívea stood on raised platforms—often wooden boxes used to ship soap—and publicly preach gender equality. Nívea also advocates on behalf of the lower classes, which Clara can’t take seriously because of Nívea’s expensive clothes. In this way, Clara exposes the hypocrisy that can arise within social activism, and implies that if Nívea really cared about the poor, she wouldn’t buy expensive boots while others are starving.
Themes
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In the meantime, Esteban arrives at the city station. He has been gone for years, and the city looks unfamiliar. He decides that the place is a “shithole” and goes to meet Férula, who looks much older to Esteban and gives off an aura of sadness. She immediately takes Esteban to see Doña Ester, and when Férula opens the door, Esteban is struck by the smell of medicine and rotting flesh. He goes to greet his mother, sitting semi-upright in the bed as usual, but she stops him. Férula explains that it is the smell. “It clings,” she says.
Esteban’s description of the city as a “shithole” again reflects his cruelty and privilege. Many of the people in the city are suffering under poverty and starvation, but all Esteban thinks about is how the city offends his superiority. The “clinging” smell of Doña Ester’s rotting flesh is symbolic of the rotting city: the city is decaying, and its people can’t escape it.
Themes
Esteban pulls the covers back from Doña Ester’s legs and exposes her ulcerated flesh, loaded with maggots and flies. Doña Ester says the doctors want to amputate, but she is too old for all that and prefers simply to die. Esteban grows visibly upset, and his mother makes him promise to marry and have a nice family. He is 35 years old, and it is time he settles down, Doña Ester says. Two days later, Doña Ester dies, but Esteban isn’t there because he has gone to Severo del Valle’s house to see if he has any more available daughters. That night, Férula and Esteban find their mother dead with a smile on her face.
Esteban clearly loves his mother, even though he claims he doesn’t. He runs to her despite the smell of her wounds, which again speaks to the profound connection that exists among family members. Doña Ester’s dying wish for Esteban to marry and have a family reflects the patriarchal ideals of their society, as this seems to be the only acceptable path for him. Doña Ester’s her smile in death, meanwhile, implies that she knows Esteban has listened— she, like other women in the novel, seems to have a powerful intuition.
Themes
Severo explains to Esteban that his daughters are each married, nuns, or sick. Clara is the right age to marry, but she sees ghosts and doesn’t speak. Esteban isn’t afraid of ghosts and considers a mute wife a good thing, so he asks to meet Clara. When Nívea brings Clara out to meet Esteban, Clara says that she has been expecting him and immediately asks if he wants to marry her. Nívea and Severo are mortified, but Esteban doesn’t seem to mind and says he indeed wants to marry her. Clara escorts him outside, and Esteban knows that she has accepted him. What Esteban doesn’t know, however, is that Clara has already resigned to marry without love.
Nívea and Severo are mortified because as a woman, Clara is expected to be reserved and demure, and her candor toward Esteban here is the exact opposite of such expectations. Clearly, neither Esteban nor Clara are concerned with matters of love when it comes to marriage. Esteban is looking for a suitable and quick fix, and Clara, on account of her supernatural powers, knows she is connected to Esteban regardless of how she feels about him.
Themes
A few months after Doña Ester’s death, Clara and Esteban announced their engagement with a lavish party. As Clara and Esteban dance beneath the lighted canopies, Clara is so happy that she fails to hear the whispered warnings of the spirits. As the night comes to an end and Clara begins to pay more attention to the spirits, she realizes it has been hours since she last saw Barrabás. Suddenly, a scream of horror cuts through the crowd, and the people part as Barrabás, stumbling with a large knife buried in his back, lumbers toward Clara. He falls dead at her feet, and Nívea and Severo are terrified at such a bad omen.
Clara might not love Esteban, but she certainly seems happy to be marrying him. However, the whispered warnings of the spirits and Nívea and Severo’s worry that Barrabás death is a bad omen suggests that Clara and Esteban’s marriage is destined for bad luck. It is never revealed who kills the dog or why, which further adds to the novel’s sense of mystery.
Themes
The next year is spent preparing for the wedding. Nívea meticulously packs Clara’s wedding trunks, filling them with the latest fashions, but Clara shows little interest. At the same time, Esteban begins construction on the biggest, most luxurious home the city has ever seen. He hires a French architect, lays Italian marble floors, and imports the finest furnishings and draperies from around the world. As she watches, Férula grows more and more irate. It is a sin, she says, to spend money on “nouveau riche vulgarities” and ignore the poor.
“Nouveau riche” is one who is newly rich and spending to reflect their new status, as Esteban is here. Clara, however, doesn’t seem to be impressed with material wealth. She ignores her wedding trunks and has no interest in the expensive clothes Nívea fills them with.
Themes
Esteban cares nothing about architecture or design, but he wants his new house, which quickly becomes known as “the big house on the corner,” to reflect himself and his family. Esteban insists the house be fabulous, and it must reveal the prestige that generations of his family will enjoy. Little does Esteban know that the house will grow to include twisted staircases that lead to dead ends, hanging doors, and crooked hallways. Esteban doesn’t know that Clara will build new rooms for each of her eccentric guests, that she will order complete walls and rooms demolished on the recommendations of spirits, or that the house will eventually violate several state and city laws. Despite this, Clara never goes to see the house during its construction.
To Esteban, the big house on the corner is a symbol of his wealth and status in society, as well as a symbol of his growing family. However, Esteban’s description of what the house eventually turns into suggests that despite his intentions, the big house on the corner actually turns out to be more symbolic of Clara and her mysterious powers. The twisting staircases and crooked hallways hearken to the strange nature of Clara’s abilities, and the reference to her eccentric guests suggests the house will be full of supernatural oddities instead of a big family.
Themes
After Doña Ester’s death, Férula finds herself alone with nothing to do. She is too old to hope to marry, and she is completely dependent on Esteban, but he doesn’t invite her to move into the big house on the corner. Férula knows that Clara is incompetent in domestic matters and won’t be able to run such a large house, so she decides to befriend her new sister-in-law in hopes that Clara will invite her to live with them. One day, the two women go to lunch, and Clara reaches tenderly across the table and grabs Férula’s hand. “Don’t worry,” Clara says. “You’re going to live with us and the two of us will be just like sisters.”
Clara’s words reflect her kindness, but they also reflect her supernatural powers: Clara knows that Férula is worried about her future, so she immediately sets her mind at ease. Férula’s fears also reflect their sexist society, which assumes that only young women are beautiful and desirable. Férula gave up most of her life to take care of her mother, and now she is left homeless and alone.
Themes
Clara and Esteban are married in a modest ceremony, and Esteban falls madly in love with Clara. He vows that Clara will love him as he needs to be loved, even if he must take it from her with “extreme measures.” Esteban knows that Clara can never belong to him because she belongs to the spirit world of ghosts and objects that move “of their own volition.” Still, he wants more than her body; he wants the most intimate parts of her. With Clara, Esteban’s hands feel too heavy and his voice is too harsh. His old desire to rape women remains, but he is prepared to seduce Clara if he must.
By “extreme measures,” Esteban implies that wants to rape Clara and violently force her to love him. It seems Esteban only relents to seducing Clara because he knows that forcing her won’t elicit genuine affection, which again speaks to Esteban’s misogyny—he only puts up a front of caring for her because he wants her to care about him.
Themes
Three months later, Esteban and Clara return from their honeymoon to Férula and the big house on the corner. Clara looks around the house quickly and says only that it is “very lovely.” Esteban tells Clara to look down, and she notices that she is standing on a rug made of Barrabás. She takes one look into the dog’s glass eyes and faints. Férula reminds Esteban that she said Clara would hate the rug, and they roll it up and take it the basement, placing it next to Marcos’s old trunks.
Again, Clara’s quick assessment of the big house on the corner as “very lovely” suggests she isn’t impressed with material wealth. She barely gives the fancy house a cursory glance before dismissing it, which likely isn’t the response Esteban is hoping for. He wants Clara to gush over the house and the rug, but she clearly doesn’t feel the same way.
Themes
Clara soon becomes pregnant, and Férula tends to her with close attention. After so long with Doña Ester, all Férula knows is taking care of others, so she lovingly bathes Clara, powders her, and brushes her hair. Esteban returns to Tres Marías, and while he is gone, the big house on the corner settles into a “gentle routine without men.” Férula hates when Esteban returns from the country, filling the house with his rough ways, disrupting the “harmony” established in his absence. Hatred for Esteban consumes Férula, so she goes to confession and tells the priest she has committed a sin. She says that her sister-in-law is an angel and that she wants to climb into bed with her and feel her warmth. Férula claims she listens at Esteban and Clara’s bedroom door, and that she even watches them having sex through a crack in the door.
The attention Férula gives Clara boarders on obsessive, as does her spying on Clara and Esteban while they have sex. Férula’s attention to Clara and her resentment of Esteban for disrupting their “gentle routine without men” suggests that Férula is attracted to Clara in a romantic way. Allende never explicitly states that Férula is a lesbian; however, Férula’s confession to the priest suggests that she is, since homosexuality is viewed as a sin by the Catholic church. In this way, Allende acknowledges the different forms love takes beyond heterosexual relationships or the bonds between friends or family.
Themes
Clara has endless conversations with her unborn baby and declares the child will be a girl named Blanca. Long after Clara’s due date, Dr. Cuevas realizes that Clara has no intention of having her baby, so he delivers the child by cesarean section. Blanca is born hairy and ugly, looking much like an armadillo. Esteban is horrified by the sight of his new child and thinks his wife has birthed “a monster, and a female one to boot.” With time and Clara’s milk, Blanca transforms into an “almost pretty child,” and Férula is so busy taking care of her that she doesn’t have time to listen at Clara and Esteban’s door.
Clara seems to refuse to give birth to Blanca; given the way women are treated in the society of the novel, it seems as if she is protecting Blanca from the oppression she will be born into. As an example, Dr. Cuevas takes it upon himself to decide that Clara needs a C-section. Much like he performed an autopsy on Rosa without asking anyone’s permission, Dr. Cuevas doesn’t ask Clara’s opinion or input concerning her own body or her baby. Instead, Dr. Cuevas makes the decision for her, which further reflects their sexist society. Similarly, Esteban’s reference to Blanca as a female “monster” suggests that his estimation of his daughter rests solely on her looks. Even as Blanca grows, Esteban only admits she is “almost pretty.”
Themes
