A military solider working for the opposition during the coup d’état. After the Presidential Palace is bombed and Jaime is beaten and taken to the Ministry of Defense, the kind soldier tells Jaime to sit and rest, but warns Jaime to stand up the minute he says so. The soldier says that Jaime operated on his mother and saved her life, a story he later repeats to Blanca and Esteban Trueba when he goes to the big house on the corner to tell them that Jaime was killed at the Ministry of Defense. The kind soldier symbolizes the goodness that persists despite the cruelty and violence of the coup d’état, and he represents all the soldiers and police officers who are forced by intimidation and fear to participate in the coup.
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The Kind Soldier Character Timeline in The House of the Spirits
The timeline below shows where the character The Kind Soldier appears in The House of the Spirits. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 13: The Terror
...others are loaded into a van and taken to the Ministry of Defense. There, a kind soldier tells Jaime to sit and rest but to get up immediately when the soldier says...
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Two weeks later, the kind solider goes to the big house on the corner and tells Blanca all about Jaime’s death....
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