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Victoria League

Professor Farrah Cato

LIT3368

25 February 2014

Home Sweet Home

Isabel Allende’s novel The House of the Spirits describes and details the life of a family

over generations. The family spends most of their time between two different homes, each of

which belongs to one of the main characters. As time goes on, it becomes clear that these

characters have a connection to their homes. The importance of “home” is a central theme in the

novel, and one of the narrators vocalizes this near the end of the novel: “That same day my

grandfather wanted us to leave the country…But I explained that I could not leave, because far

away from my country I would be like those trees they chop down at Christmastime, those poor

rootless pines that last a little while and then die” (Allende 423). Although this statement

specifies “country,” it highlights the importance of being in a place considered “home” and the

deep connection that a person feels to his home. Allende goes further with this theme by showing

that the link goes both ways; the homes seem to depend on the characters as much as, or more

than, the characters depend on their homes. Allende shows this twist on the theme of a person’s

connection to home through the parallels between the two main characters and their respective

homes, suggesting that homes are lost without their owners in the same way that people are

“rootless” without their homes.

Esteban Trueba is the main male figure in the novel. He decides to rebuild his family

property, Tres Marías, into the best in the area. It had been in ruins, the tenants struggling to

survive, and he accomplishes this task of reconstruction primarily on his own. None of the other

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main characters help him, so he considers himself the sole owner of the property. Tres Marías is

so important to him that, when away from it, he says, “the lazy, empty days in the city…set my

nerves on edge. I managed to keep myself busy, but it wasn’t enough: I was always in a bad

mood” (Allende 113). Away from his home, he struggles to function well and feels lost. His hard

work rebuilding the property fosters a connection between him and Tres Marías, a connection

that develops into a physical connection. This is clear in a variety of examples throughout the

novel. Most notably, a severe earthquake destroys much of the countryside, including Tres

Marías. “Esteban Trueba appeared in the doorway at the very instant when the house snapped in

half like an eggshell and collapsed in a cloud of dust, flattening him beneath a pile of rubble”

(Allende 160). When the earthquake causes the house to collapse, Trueba is caught in the

destruction and breaks all his bones. Illustrating their connectedness, the earthquake breaks the

house in half, and does the same to Esteban Trueba: “…after an hour, when the sun was already

shining on that anguished landscape, they lifted the patrón from his tomb. He had so many

broken bones that they could not be counted, but he was alive and his eyes were open” (Allende

160). The earthquake shatters both Trueba and the house; their injuries are similar and later they

require similar rehabilitation. Trueba’s physical connection to his home is so strong that he

mirrors its fate in the earthquake.

Their connection goes both ways; the house reflects Trueba as well. In the novel,

Trueba’s sister Férula curses him and says that his “body and soul will shrivel up” (Allende 132).

As time goes on, this becomes true; he seems to shrink in size and he also becomes worn down

with the problems and stresses that he faces in his life. As this is happening, Tres Marías

experiences the same problem. Trueba begins to neglect the property as he focuses more on his

political career. “But with the weight of age and politics, Tres Marías, like many other things that

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had once seemed essential, had ceased to interest him. Its only value was symbolic” (Allende

309). It becomes less important to him and without him there to keep the place functioning, it

falls into ruins much the same way that he does. It faces problems and stresses just like Trueba.

Slowly but surely, the two of them become more dilapidated and ruined:

“…the countryside was not as prosperous as before…he was always busy now

and never had the time to make the trip…His foreman was a man defeated by his

own pessimistic views, and his news was mostly a series of misfortunes: the

strawberries froze, the chickens caught the pip, the grapes rotted. Thus the

countryside, which had been the source of his wealth, became a burden, and

Senator Trueba frequently had to withdraw money from his other businesses to

prop up that insatiable land, which seemed to want to return to the days of

oblivion, before he rescued it from misery.” (Allende 308)

Two pages before that, Trueba thinks to himself, “Férula was right…my body and my soul are

shriveling up” (Allende 306). Tres Marías reflects Trueba’s decline by simultaneously

experiencing the same curse and fate that Férula had predicted. By the end of the novel, Tres

Marías seems to depend on Trueba more than he depends on it as it mirrors his condition and his

gradual deterioration.

Clara, Trueba’s wife and the other main character of the novel, has a physical connection

to their house in the city, which the characters refer to as “the house on the corner.” In the second

half of the novel, she builds new rooms to accommodate her needs and she spends time taking

care of the house. By doing this, Clara physically invests herself in the house on the corner the

same way Trueba invests himself in Tres Marías. “Clara saw to everything. Within two weeks

the cages were filled with new birds…Clara brought life back to the house. She ordered the cook

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to keep a stove always lit and told her that she should be prepared to feed a large number of

guests at a moment’s notice” (Allende 210). Her attention to the revitalization of the house on

the corner begins the physical connection between them, and by building new rooms she makes

the home her own. “In response to Clara’s imagination and the requirements of the moment, the

noble, seigniorial architecture began sprouting all sorts of extra little rooms, staircases, turrets,

and terraces…The big house on the corner soon came to resemble a labyrinth” (Allende 224).

Constructing these rooms based on her desires makes the house belong to her more than any of

the other characters. These actions invest her in the house on the corner and foster the physical

connection between them.

The connection becomes clear at the time of Clara’s death. Her granddaughter, Alba,

“knew that her grandmother was the soul of the big house on the corner. Everybody else learned

it later, when Clara died and the house lost its flowers, its nomadic friends, and its playful spirits

and entered into an era of decline” (Allende 283). Alba sees how Clara and the house are

intertwined, and how much the house relies on Clara for its liveliness. However, Clara doesn’t

seem to depend on the house on the corner as much as the house depends on her. Although she

cares for it, she is comfortable being away from the home at Tres Marías. Without her attention,

the house would have never been lively. When she dies, the house on the corner also dies,

showing that their connection develops through the house’s dependence on her existence:

“Clara’s death completely transformed life in the big house on the corner. Gone

with her were the spirits and the guests, as well as that luminous gaiety that had

always been present…[Alba] noticed it before anybody else in the flowers wilting

in their vases, saturating the air with a sickening odor that lingered while they

dried up, lost their leaves, and fell apart, leaving only the musty stalks, which no

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one bothered to clean up until much later…Then the plants died, because no one

remembered to water them or talk to them as Clara had done. The cats crept away,

disappearing just as they had arrived or been born in the cracks and crevices of

the roof.” (Allende 295)

Clara’s death signals the biggest decline the house ever sees. No one is able to rejuvenate the

house in the way that Clara could; like Alba says, Clara is the soul of the house and it cannot

survive without her. For some time after her death, none of the other characters take care of the

house and do not seem to even notice that it is declining. Clara’s attention to the house is the

only reason it thrives. The connection between Clara and the house is mostly one-sided; she does

not depend on it the way it depends on her. Allende’s twist of the theme of people being

“rootless” without their home is clear in the way that the house is helpless without Clara.

The commonplace theme of characters feeling lost without their homes is present in

Allende’s novel, but she turns the idea around and makes the homes dependent on their owners.

Trueba originally feels lost when he is away from Tres Marías, but as he focuses more on other

aspects of his life and his other stresses, the property is lost without his guidance. They also

experience a physical connection, both suffering similar ways at the same time. At first, Trueba

mirrors Tres Marías when his bones break after the house shatters, but later the house is affected

by his physical changes and his gradual decline. Clara and the house on the corner, on the other

hand, hardly share a symbiotic relationship as Clara does not depend on the house for her

comfort and survival. The house only feels lively when she takes care of it, and it parallels her

death. Without her attention and care, the house on the corner cannot survive. These two

characters and their clear connections to their homes show that, if a person invests himself in his

home, that home will be dependent on him and lost without his guidance.

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Works Cited

Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1985. Print.