However, although Alba is continuing the cycles, she is also breaking them. The most important cycle she is stopping is the cycle of revenge that is ongoing through the book. Even though she would like to get even with Esteban Garcia for raping and torturing her, she realizes that he only did it to get revenge for what her grandfather did to his grandmother. Alba states ‘The day my grandfather tumbled his grandmother, Pancha Garcia, among the rushes of the riverbank, he added another link to the chain of events that had to complete itself. Afterward the grandson of the woman who was raped repeats the gesture with the granddaughter of the rapist, and perhaps forty years from now my grandson will knock Garcia’s granddaughter down among the rushes and so on down though the centuries in an unending tale of sorrow, blood and love.’
Another theme expressed in the epilogue is the importance of the past and memories. Because she is able to see her family’s past, Alba is able to see the people in her life through a different perspective, and better understand the events she has witnessed. It also causes her to move on and discard her rage and vengeance by showing her futility of challenging fate. At the same time this allows her to see the actions that have shaped characters like Esteban Garcia. ‘And now I seek my hatred and cannot seem to find it. I feel its flame going out as I come to understand the existence of Colonel Garcia and the others like him…It would be very difficult for me to avenge all those who should be avenged, because my revenge would just be another part of the same inexorable rite. I have to break that terrible chain.' This connects back to the previous theme of chains, because she is able to see the chains and therefore find ways to change them.
The tone of this final chapter changes as it progresses. At the start it is peaceful and joyous in a sense, as Alba feels calm even though her beloved grandfather has just passed away. This can be seen by the phrases ‘happy, conscious and serene’ and ‘out on the sailboat of the gentle sea, smiling and calm.’ However, as she begins to recount her experiences in the concentration camp the tone becomes more gloomy and melancholic, as expressed using sentences such as ‘At other times I would wake up sad and filled with foreboding.’ and ‘I sometimes fell into a black pit of depression and began to recite the refrain about how much I wanted to die.”
Although there are many symbols in the novel, the most prominent one is that of the old house in the corner. While at the beginning of the novel it is an ostentatious show of Esteban’s wealth, power love for Clara, it soon too becomes a representation of Clara and her influence over her family. In this final chapter the house is found in disrepair, as there is no one to care for it, demonstrating Clara’s waning influence over her remaining relatives and Esteban’s diminishing wealth and power. In spite of this, the house is restored by Alba and Esteban, which links both to the theme of cycle, by the house being returned to its former glory and to the theme of memories, as this restoration helps to revive some of Alba’s memories. ‘Afterward my grandfather and I walked arm in arm though the house, stopping in each place to remember the past and salute the imperceptible ghosts of other eras, who, despite all the ups and downs, have remained in place.’ It is also the house, and the presence of Clara which calms Alba and allows her to let go of her thirst for revenge.
Isabel Allende, the author of ‘The House of the Spirits’ uses the language technique of magical realism, a typically Latin American style that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, in order to emphasize her themes. In the epilogue, this technique is best demonstrated when Esteban Trueba is lying on his death bed and is visited by Clara. ‘At first she was just a mysterious glow, but as my grandfather slowly lost the rage that had tormented him throughout his life, she appeared as she had been at her best, laughing with all her teeth and stirring up all the other spirits as she sailed through the house.’ This technique reestablishes the presence of the spirits throughout the novel; and also shows the powerful nature of Latin life, as Esteban Trueba abides by the Western style of living and as he dies he finally finds happiness with the spirits the way Clara was all along. This also links back to the theme of memories, as Esteban’s memory of Clara is so strong that she appears to him as if she were a real person. The magical realism is particularly powerful here, because Clara was practically supernatural herself, from the ways that she could predict the future and move things with her mind. As she is herself a blurred line between fact and fiction, the usage of magical realism here is very effective.
The major characters in the epilogue are Alba and Esteban Garcia, both have evolved from before. Alba, as was stated previously, has discovered the need to learn from the mistakes of the past, and to let go of grief and pain she had suffered. She has also become able to see events from other people’s point of view, and by doing so has matured and grown as a person to a stage where she is willing to accept people for who they are. She is also pregnant, and ready to start her own family and a new heritage, returning to the theme of memories. She writes this story, reaffirming her association with the past. ‘It was my grandfather who had the idea that we should write this story. “That way you’ll be able to take your roots with you if you ever have to leave, my dear,” he said.’ As for Esteban, he learned to let go of all the anger that had plagued him through everything and had prevented him from loving Clara as he truly wanted to. Once he is able to let go of the past, by writing it down into what would become the book, he is able to die calmly and to see Clara in all her glory. This is another example of how the theme of memories relates to the chapter. ’My grandfather died last night. He did not die like a dog, as he feared he would, but peacefully, in my arms.’ However we see that he has shrunk into an old feeble man, proving that Ferula’s curse on him had come true, again showing how the lines between reality and fantasy are blurred in the novel. When Alba returns she finds him ‘shrunken in his armchair. I was surprised to see how old he looked, how small and trembling.’ He has shrunk as is power and his spirit diminished, and it became so noticeable to him that he was certain the curse was coming true. Even Alba notices it at the end, looking at old photographs, ‘my grandfather when he was young and stood six feet tall, irrefutable proof that Ferula’s curse came true and that his body shrank in the same proportions as his soul.’
To conclude, in the epilogue of the novel ‘The House of the Spirits’ we see finish to two of the major themes of the novel, memories and cycles. The tone of the chapter is a fitting ending, as it is both optimistic but at the same time cheerless about the events of the past. We observe an example of the magical realism used throughout the novel, the better show the involvement of spiritual aspects in the characters, especially Clara’s, lives. The house on the corner, a strong symbol through the novel has been restored, emphasizing the cycles seen in the novel. And finally, the characters have developed to a stage where they have become whole and are ready to begin new cycles of their own.