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Chapter 3
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The House of Ulloa, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Revolution and Aristocracy
Intentions vs. Consequences
The Political and the Personal
Marriage and Parenthood
Summary
Analysis
Julián begins trying to organize the marquis’s archives for three or four hours every morning. Julián is diligent, but the task proves unexpectedly complicated. Eventually, he admits to the marquis that he could use help from a lawyer. Julián begins to realize that the decay of the family archives represents the history of the Ulloa family in general.
The task of reforming the marquis and fixing the manor proves to be more daunting than Julián anticipated. While Julián’s inexperience contributes to the issue, the massive scope of the crumbling archives shows how much the manor has fallen into decay, not just literally but in terms of status.
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Themes
The marquis, whose full name is Don Pedro Moscoso de Cabreira y Pardo de la Lage, lost his father at a young age and so couldn’t go to university. His father’s side of the family had always had an interest in education, while his mother’s side was more practical. Rumor has it that after the death of the marquis’s father, his uncle on his mother’s side, Don Gabriel, came to manor to live lavishly on what his dead brother-in-law left behind. Don Gabriel left his sister, Doña Micaela (the marquis’s mother), with little for herself. Doña Micaela began hiding gold coins for herself, but one day while Don Gabriel was out hunting, 20 masked men came to rob Doña Micaela, forcing her to tell them where the coins were. The rumor was that the robbers must have been wealthy men with connections to the Ulloa family, but nothing came of these rumors.
Don Pedro’s father believed in education, but he died at an early age, before he could ensure that Don Pedro got his own education. (“Don” is not a name but a title of nobility.) The absence of Don Pedro’s father seems to be something that still hangs over his life, as Don Pedro is still relatively uneducated. Meanwhile, Don Pedro’s mother was formative in his life in a different way. He witnessed her as she tried to hide her money away from her scheming brother-in-law. This seemed to instill in Don Pedro the idea that one must always be on guard to protect one’s property. The robbery of Doña Micaela shows once again how this part of the Spanish countryside has descended into lawlessness.
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Eventually, Doña Micaela died, leaving Don Pedro (the marquis) with no one to care for him except Don Gabriel. Primitivo began to accompany them on hunts as an expert tracker, and Don Gabriel was always wary about how Primitivo might exert influence over Don Pedro. Eventually, Don Gabriel’s health starts to decline, and he leaves everything to his three sons, giving anything to Don Pedro. Now, by the time Julián arrives, the House of Ulloa is in a drained, decrepit state. Don Pedro is in deep debt. He tried at one point to look at a secondary hiding place where his mother stashed doubloons, but it was empty. As it turns out, the real Marquis of Ulloa, based on paperwork, is somewhere in Madrid, but Don Pedro is allowed to continue being the marquis because no one in the village knows the truth.
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