Clara Trueba The House Of The Spirits

Women are known for soft and kind traits that give them either a caring or motherly character. These traits may present themselves in harsh actions but are usually out of good nature that causes change in some form. In Isabel Allende’s novel The House of the Spirits, women are better at causing long lasting changes in family and relationships through soft actions. These changes are demonstrated through three generations of the Trueba family; Clara the clairvoyant, Blanca, and little Alba. Clara Trueba, known as Clara the clairvoyant changes her known family history, the intelligence of the tenants of Très Marïas and her husband through simple acts. She first records events from her entire life to allow others to aid themselves through her

As a child, Blanca helped Pedro Tercero Garcia to properly read with books she brought him that sparked his curiosity and desire. With Blanca’s aid his literacy improved in ways that “his schoolmistress had been unable to do with all her canings” (Allende, 139). This later helps him as he gets a job under the socialist party through his musical influence on the radio. Both jobs require a high literacy level which was able to be unlocked through Blanca’s tenderness and caring nature. This caring nature is also a large factor when she cuts her new husband Jean de Satigny out her life forever. This dramatic change in Blanca’s life was done for the protection of her unborn daughter from Blanca’s husband. “She had decided to forget the man she had married and act as if he had never existed. She never spoke of him again, nor did she offer any explanation for her flight from the conjugal abode” (Allende, 265). Blanca’s decision changes her life as she is now living without a husband, a frowned upon decision in society. Along with her little education, she can never get a decent job and support herself and her daughter. Although Blanca cannot get a well paying job, she opens up a pottery class for mongoloid children in the big house on the corner. During these classes “Blanca and Alba had quickly understood that the children worked much better when they felt loved, and that the only way to communicate with them was through affection. They learned to hug them, kiss them, and fondle them until they wound up genuinely loving them” (Allende, 280). The classes not only help the children express and enjoy themselves but it also helps everyone else learn softer and loving ways to communicate with them. Her actions cause parents and guardians to be able to understand and love their children who have not been able