99 pages • 3 hours read
Isabel AllendeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Even though the setting is never explicitly mentioned, The House of the Spirits is assumed to take place against the social and political backdrop of postcolonial Chile. Certain events and characters hint at this, including the earthquake (possibly based off the Great Chilean earthquake in 1960) and the characters of the Poet and the President. The former’s verses appear in the epigraph of the book and come from a poem by Pablo Neruda, while the latter resembles Salvador Allende, the first Marxist president to be elected to power in a liberal democracy in Latin America. The President’s manner of election and the military coup that eventually topples his government likewise reflect actual events surrounding Allende’s tenure, including the coup led by General Augusto Pinochet that eventually replaced it.
Politics and ideology are thus inherently important aspects of the story; they exist in the background but also directly and personally impact the family’s story throughout the book. One of the very first things one learns about Severo del Valle, for instance, is that he has political aspirations; his wife, Nívea, is similarly inclined as a progressive suffragette. Rosa’s death inadvertently results from these very ambitions, as she accidentally consumes poisoned brandy that arrived anonymously for Severo—presumably from one of his political enemies, as it arrives just as he is invited to join the Liberal Party.
By Isabel Allende
A Long Petal of the Sea
Isabel Allende
And of Clay Are We Created
Isabel Allende
City of the Beasts
Isabel Allende
Daughter Of Fortune
Isabel Allende
Eva Luna
Isabel Allende, Transl. Margaret Sayers Peden
In the Midst of Winter
Isabel Allende
Island Beneath the Sea
Isabel Allende
Maya's Notebook: A Novel
Isabel Allende
Of Love and Shadows
Isabel Allende
Paula
Isabel Allende
Portrait in Sepia
Isabel Allende
Ripper
Isabel Allende
The Japanese Lover
Isabel Allende
The Stories of Eva Luna
Isabel Allende
The Wind Knows My Name
Isabel Allende
Two Words
Isabel Allende
Violeta
Isabel Allende
Zorro
Isabel Allende