An Analysis Of Isabel Allende's The House Of The Spirits

Improved Essays
In this day and age, there are many female authors out there that most everyone knows, such as J.K. Rowling, creator of the wildly known Harry Potter. However, in Isabel Allende’s time, perhaps up to this day, male authors were the ones who got the recognition. Nonetheless, Allende took the world by storm with one of her first novels, The House of the Spirits, which captured three mystical women's lives in a patriarchal Chile.
From the day she was born, Isabel Allende was not quite ignorant to the political ways of the world. Allende was born in August 2, 1942, in Lima, Peru, to her father, a Chilean diplomat, and her mother. Later in Allende’s life, her mother got married to another diplomat, who got assassinated in 1973. After the murder

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    After reading Ann Cornelisen’s Women of the Shadows: Wives and Mothers of Southern Italy I am going to examine three out of the five women Cornelisen wrote about while she lived amongst these women in the villages of Lucania/Basilicata after World War II. I am also going to describe how these women underwent many struggles in their lives at a time when all of the husbands left them to go find better jobs abroad in Germany. To my own belief, these women are the foundation that preserved their family. They kept them together without any recognition and little to no appreciation of the individuals around them. Furthermore, I will also discuss how these women were representatives of their peers and the major factors kept them in these miserable circumstances they were in.…

    • 938 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Reading Response #2: Detailed Analysis on “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” In the essay “The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria” by Judith Ortiz Cofer, she portrays the stereotypes hardships which are faced by Latin women. She wants the audience to know how the stereotypes can cause distress. Stereotypes can make people to think about certain group of people in a certain way. She gives example in her essay to show how stereotypes can affect a person’s life. She tells the audience about how Latin girls are grown in the Latin culture, and how the Latin girls have to portray themselves in the society.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Eleanor Roosevelt was born on October 11, 1884 in New York City. While she was raised by a wealthy family, she faced many hardships during her childhood. Her parents and her brother passed away before she turned ten, which meant she was raised by her harsh grandmother, who damaged her self-esteem, but in 1899, 15 years later, she managed to begin her studies at London’s Allenwood Academy. She returned to New York three years later beginning her social debut by helping immigrant families.…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Cleopatra Research Paper

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Abstract: Cleopatra was a very smart and an intelligent commander. Despite her abilities and effort, she failed which made her life hopeless rather than glamourous. Cleopatra’s father Ptolemy XII died and in his will he left the kingdom to Cleopatra and her younger brother Ptolemy XIII. At the time, Cleopatra was 18 years old, while her brother was 10 years old. Ptolemy forces her to leave Alexandri and go to Syria.…

    • 1392 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Through the experiences of Puerto Rican author and narrator Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Myth of the Latin Woman: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria, exemplifies misconceptions and stereotypes Latin women face, as well as how American and Latin cultures differ. “You can leave the island, master the English language, and travel as far as you can, but if you’re a Latina, the island travels with you” (par 1), when being at the other side of the world, Judith witnessed a man kneeled before her, performing for her a rendition of “Maria” from West Side Story, while this gathered other people’s attention, it did not amuse the…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The combination of power and arrogance has inevitable and detrimental consequences. The greater the power is, lodged within the hands of a man, the more liable it becomes to abuse. In the novel, The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, this very concept of abused power is thoroughly examined through the protagonist, Esteban Trueba’s life. Upon various circumstances, Esteban resorts to the abuse of the multiple powers entrusted upon him, harming others physically and psychologically to obtain his desires.…

    • 1075 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Sandra Cisneros Analysis

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “I was silent as a child, and silenced as a young woman; I am taking my lumps and bumps for being a big mouth, now, but usually from those whose opinion I don 't respect.” - Sandra Cisneros (http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/sandra_cisneros.html) Sandra Cisneros, famous author of works such as The House on Mango Street (1989), was born in Chicago in 1954, to a Mexican father and Chicana (Mexican-American) mother (Encyclopedia of Hispanic-American Literature, “Sandra Cisneros”). Cisneros was the last child of seven children and the only female of the children, to which she states made for a very alienated childhood (Erickson, “Sandra Cisneros: Biography) which she made up for by writing in a spiral notebook which only her mother could…

    • 1219 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The women in society are treated as though they are not human and do not deserve the same respect and honor. In addition, as we continue to read 1984, Orwell introduces Julia. When we are first familiarized with Julia as the reader believe she is weak and is unable to help herself up as she “held out her free hand” (page…

    • 1157 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    “Fear is stronger than desire, than love or hatred, or guilt or rage, stronger than loyalty. Fear is all consuming.” In the occurrence of trauma in one’s life fear takes a profound role and utterly shapes one's life. In “Our Secrets” by Isabel Allende, a man and woman, two civil war surviving victims, forever foreigners, stumbled upon each other in the city, finding themselves making love in a room. The fear that has been consuming these two finally implodes in their secrets lies and silences.…

    • 1180 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Agency and Empowerment through Sexuality: A Feminist Critique of Garbiel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold Gabriel García Márquez’s novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, tells the disjointed story of a murder that took place many years prior to its narration. The identity of the victim is Santiago Nasar; a handsome, wealthy, and young Arab man. He is murdered because a young woman names him as her partner when she is disgracefully returned to her parents’ home on her wedding night.…

    • 1328 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Introduction Native American culture is matrilineal. Indigenous communities across the globe are matriarchal. Many Indigenous myths and stories of emergence depict woman as the creator and preserver of life and culture. It is woman centered where women are creators and teachers of tribal rituals and laws. Women are respected because they are life givers and the protectors of culture.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    For example, when Santiago tells Divina Flor that “ the time has come for [her] to be tamed.” (Márquez 8) Which means that Santiago feels that he can control Divina like she is an animal. Overall, the women in the society in the novel are seen as servants,prostitutes,wives and mothers who are voiceless. In addition, they give up their dreams and education or jobs, to be a full time mother for their children and devotes their life to their family and always putting their priorities last.…

    • 1260 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    An Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Light-House” Edgar Allan Poe became a renowned writer and permanent literary figure in the horror and detective genres with works such as “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Raven”, and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. However, Poe’s obscure and unfinished work “The Lighthouse” is perhaps one of his most mysterious, and certainly one of his most unknown, stories. While differing stylistically, “The Lighthouse” shares similar themes with previous works by Poe that could help determine how the story would have been further developed. “The Lighthouse” is centered on an unnamed narrator who tells his story through a series of diary entries that take place around the first of January in 1796.…

    • 1577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Maria Majandria Analysis

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages

    She provides a service to men, she teaches them. She has power over men, unlike most women who must submit completely to the will of their husbands. While providing her service, Maria Alejandrina Cervantes is in control of her male client. Moreover, she doesn’t have to worry about losing her virginity, men can’t take her virginity, she takes men’s…

    • 1437 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Shobha De has been a dynamic personality of nearly three decades; she has been the reigning deity of the written world. For years she has defined what society has been about and focused on the world of man and matters. De was born in Maharashtra on January 7, 1948; 7:21:00; 5:30 (E of GMT); 72E50; 18N58. According to Phyllis Chubb her fiery ascendant Sagittarius, as an odd numbered sign, sets the stage for an independent, open-minded, frank, generous, sympathetic, and truthful and just one individual.…

    • 1301 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays