De lo mitico a lo historico en "La casa de los espiritus" de Isabel Allende. (Spanish text); (Chile)
Spielberg, Gordon A.
Master of Arts
With the publication of her first novel, The House of the Spirits. Isabel Allende has become a Latinamerican voice that needs to be heard. This saga, of four generations of a family, combines mythical and historical elements with a passionate voice. The mythic level is seen through various elements, the most important being magic, as seen through the figure of Clara, and the myth of the dominant male as seen through the figure of Esteban Trueba. The historical level concentrates on the history of Chile starting with the beginning of the 20th century and ends in 1975 when General Pinochet is firmly in control. These two levels combine in a circular form which shows that history repeats itself and the same mythic elements combine over and over again. Through this novel we also see that various parts of the history have a base in mythical elements.
Latin American literature