Power, Culture, and Author
In the story, The House of Spirits, Isabel Allende used the ideas of power, culture, and author very frequently. It is easy to see Estebans struggle for power throughout the book. His struggle to have full power over Clara and his raping of the peasent girls were both examples of his power struggle.
Culture plays a pretty big part in the book because you have to realize that things back then and over there, aren’t the same as things are now. You have to be open and understanding to the changes between cultures that allows for differences between what we do and what they do.
The Author of this book was Isabel Allende. She used a technique of having different people tell the story. It was always changing as in who was talking to you or whos tellin the story at that particular time. Isabel Allende set up the book so there would be people in the novel telling the story, but that there would also be a narrerator that jumps in from time to time. I found this to be confusing at first. Getting used to the different voices in the story was difficult because it made me look back alot and make sure I knew who was talking. This clears up as I got used to it more and deeper in the book when I had a better understanding of the characters, it was more evident as to whom was speaking.
I like how you said culture played a big part in the novel. I agree with you that you had to phase out what life is like today and take in considerations of the way life is in the novel. I agree with you in which the novel was confusing at first to read due to the different narrators but I also had a better understand once I read further and understood who was talking and more about the characters. In the long run I believe it was neat way to write the novel.
↓ Quote | Posted November 27, 2006, 9:47 amI agree that it was hard to know who was telling the story all the time. I wasn’t used to Allende’s way of writing either and it did take away to get used to.
↓ Quote | Posted December 7, 2006, 3:54 pm