House of the Spirits, Major Motifs

Setting

Tres Marias feels a great change after the horrific earthquake, but after a year and a half the estate almost looks as good, or better, than before the tragic event. The estate that is rural, in the country, and in the middle of nowhere still keeps chickens and cows on their farms. The peasants live in shacks and to get a real education or supplies they must ride into town. The main house, the most prominent of all the buildings, has been rebuilt and now has hot water in bathrooms and a German pump that pumps great gushes of water for the people. The chapter takes place in Tres Marias for the whole chapter to keep the focus on Esteban’s decline state of mind. From the beginning he is begging for Clara, and by the end he has lost Clara and has taken his anger out on Pedro Tercero. He hates Tres Marias because he has to be with people not of his class, “ Everything Will change when we return to the city and start living like civilized people again.” (200)

Magic Realism

After the earthquake it seems as if all the magic used in the book has dissipated. There are small traces of magic when Clara knows that Esteban used to rape peasant girls and Esteban never told her, but it is not stated that she read his mind maybe someone who saw Esteban taking girls away, told Clara. The only other trace of magic realism is when Esteban believes that he is shrinking even though he is not. The magic may be where his clothes are becoming looser or longer, but he justifies that with his loss of weight from eating healthy. The reason for the magic realism ending after the earthquake was a way to give a drastic end to magic with an event that was perceived as magic before, but now science shows that earthquakes occur because of the elastic rebound theory. After the earthquake is the beginning of the huge power shift from men to women. Magic was used to augment a women power giving them the beauty of a mermaid, in the case of Rosa, or telepathy, in the case of Clara. Women are becoming more powerful than men and in the process they are losing their magic properties while men are realizing theirs. Esteban was reconstructed bone by bone after the rubble from the earthquake was lifted off him, and he has the health of a youth with the ability to lose weight with ease, not worry about his liver or kidney, and he can eat what he wants. Also after his bones were destroyed and displaced, a year and a half later a normal person would be in a wheel chair, but Esteban only needs a silver cane, which he doesn’t really need.

Love

In the beginning of their love, Clara and Esteban were only married because of class and possible Esteban’s obsession with the de Valle family. Clara’s love for Esteban has disappeared in this chapter, she has realized that they have nothing to talk about so why should they sleep in the same bed. Why should they sleep in the same bed if Clara has lost her yearning for sex? She feels used for sex by Esteban because he is always mad at her in the day, but at night he wants to get into bed a make love. However, Esteban’s love for Clara has not declined at all she is the only woman whom he has respected and she is the only woman who knows him and can satisfy him. He assumed what she wanted by ordering all new and expensive furniture and china for the main house, but Clara never had any interest in nice things. He did what she wanted, giving the peasants real money instead of pink slips which could only be used on the estate, but she either didn’t notice or didn’t care anymore. Finally he tried to do what he wanted, he pleaded for her love and when she declined him he tried to force her to love him, but he knew that he could not hurt the women whom he loved so much. However, it is ironic that Esteban is the one who destroys the marriage near the end of the chapter. He loses control because Clara has proven him wrong so he strikes her so hard that she loses some teeth and her strength to walk. Immediately after, Clara and Blanca leave him and Clara removes her wedding band and stops using her married name. The love between Esteban and Blanca was never there in the first place because Esteban never understood Blanca. He confused Blanca’s interest in Jean de Satigny’s class and culture as an interest in Jean de Satigny himself. Esteban also can’t understand the most important thing to Blanca, her love for Pedro Tercero. He doesn’t understand how she can fall in love with someone of a lower class, but Esteban doesn’t understand the unexplainable attraction of love and sees it as bondage of two people from the same class. The love between Blanca and Pedro Tercero is the strongest love in the whole book. The devotion of the two to stay together through all the years is something close to magic. Starting out from playing in mud and sleeping naked under the dinner table on top of each other like two fitting puzzle pieces, perfect. Then through the years getting more and more serious until their love cannot be separated by Esteban’s skeptical morals. They start to sneak out at night to meet by the river where they embrace and make love ending in the same position from when they first met. The love between the two lovers is natural not between class, money, family, or looks, but between two people who found love and will never let anyone take it from them.