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

notebooks. From a young age, Clara “was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own” (Allende, 1). Her notebooks make their way down to her granddaughter Alba, who after being kidnapped and tortured, uses them as a form of therapy to help herself overcome her terrifying memories. Clara’s notebooks changed Alba’s perspective on her grief and allow her to write a story for more to know the history and truth about her family. Clara’s family is larger than those related to her by blood. When she sees the anguish of the tenants at Très Marïas, she dedicates her time to teaching them basic skills. “Clara divided her time between the sewing workshop, the general store, and the school, where she established a headquarters for treating mange and lice, untangling the mysteries of the alphabet, teaching the children to sing… the women to boil milk, cure diarrhea, and bleach clothes” (Allende, 105). By teaching the tenants of Très Marïas healthcare and how to read, she saves many of their lives and changes their perspective of their rights and freedoms. This allows for them in the future to making a living for themselves without an authoritative figure like Esteban Trueba keeping them in the dark on their basic rights. While at Très Marïas, Clara’s husband, Esteban Trueba, became furious with her for taking their daughter’s side and beats her to the point where she loses most of her teeth. Unlike what would have been customary at the time for Clara to forgive Esteban, she decides that she will never speak to her husband again. This changes Esteban as years later “his daily felt more lonely and furious. He had resigned himself to the idea that his wife would never speak to him again” (Allende, 224). Clara’s silence changes Esteban’s behaviour for the rest of his life, he becomes lonely and easily irritable which later affects his political career and relationship with the rest of his family. Through writing, teaching, and silence, Clara Trueba was able to cause long lasting change in her family’s memory, resourcefulness and relationships.

Clara’s daughter, Blanca Trueba, creates long lasting ripples of change when she teaches her lover to read, leaves her husband, and teaches pottery to mongoloid children.

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

to communicate before, from their disability. Blanca’s loving and resourceful nature allows her to change many character’s future in terms of their jobs, family and relationships maintained through communication.

The youngest of the three Trueba generations, Alba Trueba, is able to change her grandfather’s perspective on women, family history and the world’s awareness. Alba continued her schooling past what was expected of women which caused her grandfather to try to pull her out of school. But “he had finally come to accept- beaten into it by the tide of new ideas- that not all women were complete idiots, and he believed that Alba, who was too plain to attract a well-do-to husband, could enter one of the professions and make her living like a man” (Allende, 301). This quotation shows that Alba’s schooling was able to change her grandfather perspective on women’s roles. Although not a complete change it allows Alba to later enter university where she continues her studies and meets Miguel with whom she falls in love with. From the point that Alba continued her studies, she becomes informed of her damaged country and does all that she can to help. This turns out to cause her trouble as she’s kidnapped and tortured by the military for being in love with Miguel, a guerrilla member. Esteban Garcia constantly demands Alba to reveal information about Miguel’s whereabouts in which he asks her, “‘Well, Alba, I’ve given you time to think things over. Now the two of us are going to talk and you’re going to tell me where Miguel is and we’re going to get this over with quickly’ Garcia said. ‘I want to go to the bathroom,’ Alba answered” (Allende, 409). Alba refuses to answer Esteban Garcia questions and remains loyal to her lover. She never gives in to his demands even when she is tortured, raped and has three fingers cut off. This scarring event changes her beliefs of her identity though she attempts to remain strong and relentless. Eventually Alba’s strength fails her when she’s kidnapped and she proceeds to lose the will to live. Her grandmother comes to her at this time and encourages her to record what happened to her that way others can be aware of her suffering.
“[She] suggested that she write a testimony that might one day call attention to the terrible secret that she was living through, so that the world would know about this horror that was taking place parallel to the peaceful existence of those who did not want to know, who could afford the illusion of a normal life, and of those who could deny that they were on a raft adrift in the sea of sorrow, ignoring, despite all evidence, that only blocks away from their happy world there were others, these other who live and die on the dark side” (Allende, 414).
Alba in taking her grandmother’s advice allows her to survive and tell everyone about what happened to the victims of the military coup by transforming her memories into a novel. This not only changes Alba’s life as her will allows her to see her family again but the testimony in the form of a novel changes the world’s knowledge about the military coup. Alba’s studies, determination and will allow her to change her family’s perspective, Esteban Garcia’s plans and the known information of the military coup.

Clara’s, Blanca’s, and Alba’s ways of teaching literacy, living on their own and writing caused more pronounced change in their family life and relationships with others. Although the men in the novel cause the major change in government and revolutions, their changes eventually topple while the women’s softer and gentler actions stay for the long term allowing for a greater change to have taken place.