Social movements emerge from the unrepresented - the oppressed. I understand that social change and progression for countries with conservative views or who have hostile dictatorships don’t occur if the people aren’t united or willing to put their actions, ideals, into practice: praxis. In the novel, House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende illustrates how it was the ambition of the each new generation and their need to fight for their rights that caused a new way of living: being a believer in socialism, an active member in the guerrilla movement, or a liberal “radical” thinker. Reading this emotionally compelling novel helped me to understand the class readings a little better because I felt as if I was the one experiencing the inequalities, cruelties, and injustices’ Latin American people, especially women, faced in order for future generations to persevere through the violence and political corruption bulleted at them which allowed me to understand what the people from past readings felt in terms of these issues. I understand the social context regarding Allende’s illustration of torture as a representation between the power imbalance of first world countries (U.S) and Latin American countries (Chile). Due Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodríguez describing in their work “State Terror in the U.S.-Latin American Interstate Regime,” the ways in which the U.S used terror as a main tool to showcase their power, “ ….torture is not merely about making talk, obtaining