The House of the Spirits

by

Isabel Allende

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Themes and Colors
Class, Politics, and Corruption Theme Icon
Women and the Patriarchy Theme Icon
Magic and the Supernatural Theme Icon
Love Theme Icon
Family Theme Icon
Writing and the Past Theme Icon
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.
Family Theme Icon

Families and their interconnections with one another are a complex theme within The House of the Spirits. Allende’s exploration of families begins with the del Valles, who suffer endlessly when the family’s eldest daughter, Rosa, is inadvertently murdered in an assassination attempt meant for her father, Severo, an up-and-coming politician of the Liberal party in an overwhelmingly conservative country. The novel also examines the Trueba family, whose only son, Esteban, is first engaged to Rosa del Valle and later marries her younger sister, Clara, after Rosa’s untimely death. On Esteban’s hacienda (estate), Tres Marías, lives the García family, a peasant family including Esteban’s trusted foreman, Pedro Segundo (who is also the brother of Pancha, the mother of Esteban’s illegitimate son), and his son Pedro Tercero, the future lover of Esteban’s daughter, Blanca. The interconnectedness of families is also a key part of the lives of Amanda and Miguel, an orphaned sister and brother. Amanda falls in love with Esteban’s twin sons, Jaime and Nicolás, and Miguel ends up being the love of Esteban’s granddaughter, Alba’s, life. These complicated webs of connection sometimes lead to pain and loss for Allende’s characters, but Allende nonetheless argues through their stories that family ties are a crucial source of love and meaning. 

Family is at the center of much drama and pain in Allende’s novel, which underscores the power of families to cause emotional pain and even violence. Esteban has a poor relationship with his sister Férula, who, prior to her death, curses Esteban so his body will shrink “in the same proportions as his soul.” As Esteban ages, growing more disagreeable with each passing year, he indeed begins to shrink, a constant reminder of his strained relationship with Férula. Esteban’s poor relationship with Férula is likewise reflected in the unfulfilling relationships he maintains with his wife and children, who largely ignore Esteban and rightfully blame him for their unhappiness. Esteban’s wife, Clara, even refuses to speak to Esteban after he abuses her, a vow that lasts seven years until Clara’s death. Even Esteban’s illegitimate grandson, Esteban García, resents Esteban and his refusal to recognize Esteban García and his father as rightful heirs of the Trueba fortune. Esteban García’s resentment causes him to target Alba, Esteban’s legitimate granddaughter, whom Esteban García rapes and tortures during the military coup at the book’s climax. Esteban García’s anger towards his grandfather and his violent treatment of Alba further highlight the pain caused by family connections in the novel.

Despite the drama and pain caused by families in The House of the Spirits, family is nevertheless an important part of Allende’s novel, and it is a source of deep love and meaningful connections for many of the characters. Even though Blanca’s relationship with her father is often strained due to Esteban’s refusal to accept Blanca’s love for Pedro Tercero, Blanca never stops loving her father, regardless of the intense anger she feels for him. When Blanca sees Esteban for the last time, she throws her arms around him lovingly. “I love you so much, Papa!” Blanca cries, covering him with kisses. Esteban responds in kind, illustrating the deep love within all families, even those divided by disagreement and betrayal. Esteban’s relationship with his son, Jaime, is also strained, due in part to Jaime’s refusal to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a wealthy politician and landowner. Esteban and Jaime are at each other’s throats for much of the novel, but when Jaime is killed during the military coup at the novel’s climax, Esteban is inconsolable. After Jaime’s death, Esteban waits for Jaime, his “eyes glued to the doorsill, calling to [Jaime] with [his] mind.” Like his relationship with Blanca, Esteban’s relationship with his son suffers, but he deeply loves Jaime, a fact which again stresses the connection and love within families. Like her mother and uncle, Alba blames Esteban for the many tragedies in her life. However, when she sees her grandfather crying out for his dead wife and son, Alba’s “love for the old man returns and she runs to embrace him, running her hands through his white hair and comforting him.” Despite the terrible things Esteban has done, his family still loves him.

After Alba is arrested during the military coup and is tortured and raped by Esteban García, the hatred she feels for him begins to soften with time, and she decides that her connection to Esteban García began long before her birth. “The day my grandfather tumbled his grandmother, Pancha García, among the rushes of the riverbank, he added another link to the chain of events that had to complete itself,” Alba says. “Afterward the grandson of the woman who was raped repeats the gesture with the granddaughter of the rapist, and perhaps forty years from now my grandson will knock Garcia’s granddaughter down among the rushes, and so on down through the centuries in an unending tale of sorrow, blood, and love.” Alba’s reflections suggest that ultimately, family connections are neither inherently good nor inherently bad; made up of equal parts pain and love, they’re simply an essential part of being human.

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Family ThemeTracker

The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Family appears in each chapter of The House of the Spirits. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Family Quotes in The House of the Spirits

Below you will find the important quotes in The House of the Spirits related to the theme of Family.
Chapter 3 Quotes

His house would be the reflection of himself, his family, and the prestige he planned to give the surname that his father had stained. […] He could hardly guess that that solemn, cubic, dense, pompous house, which sat like a hat amid its green and geometric surroundings, would end up full of protuberances and incrustations, of twisted staircases that led to empty spaces, of turrets, of small windows that could not be opened, doors hanging in midair, crooked hallways, and portholes that linked the living quarters so that people could communicate during the siesta, all of which were Clara’s inspiration. Every time a new guest arrived, she would have another room built in another part of the house, and if the spirits told her that there was a hidden treasure or an unburied body in the foundation, she would have a wall knocked down, until the mansion was transformed into an enchanted labyrinth that was impossible to clean and that defied any number of state and city laws.

Related Characters: Clara del Valle/Trueba, Esteban Trueba
Related Symbols: The Big House on the Corner
Page Number: 104-5
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

He was the son of Esteban García, the only bastard offspring of the patrón named for him. No one knew his origin, or the reason he had that name, except himself, because his grandmother, Pancha García, had managed before she died to poison his childhood with the story that if only his father had been born in place of Blanca, Jaime, or Nicolás, he would have inherited Tres Marías, and could even have been President of the Republic if he wanted. In that part of the country, which was littered with illegitimate children and even legitimate ones who had never met their fathers, he was probably the only one to grow up hating his last name. He hated Esteban Trueba, his seduced grandmother, his bastard father, and his own inexorable peasant fate.

Related Characters: Esteban Trueba, Blanca Trueba, Esteban García, Jaime Trueba/del Valle, Nicolás Trueba, Pancha García
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 10 Quotes

“You’re a hopeless loser, son,” Trueba would say, sighing. “You have no sense of reality. You’ve never taken stock of how the world really is. You put your faith in utopian values that don’t even exist.”

“Helping one’s neighbor is a value that exists.”

“No. Charity, like Socialism, is an invention of the weak to exploit the strong and bring them to their knees.”

Related Characters: Esteban Trueba (speaker), Jaime Trueba/del Valle
Page Number: 330
Explanation and Analysis:
Epilogue Quotes

The day my grandfather tumbled his grandmother, Pancha García, among the rushes of the riverbank, he added another link to the chain of events that had to complete itself. Afterward the grandson of the woman who was raped repeats the gesture with the granddaughter of the rapist, and perhaps forty years from now my grandson will knock García’s granddaughter down among the rushes, and so on down through the centuries in an unending tale of sorrow, blood, and love.

Related Characters: Alba de Satigny (speaker), Esteban Trueba, Esteban García, Pancha García
Page Number: 479-80
Explanation and Analysis: