Isabel Allende's Clarisa

“Happiness consists in giving and in others,” (Henry Drummond). This quote effectively describes the character Clarisa in the short story, “Clarisa” written by Isabel Allende because of her giving nature and adherence for helping others. In this story, Allende depicts Clarisa as the model of affection and compassion by giving absolutely everything she owns and even spends “... the last cent of her dowry and inheritance,” (Allende, 434) and, “In her own poverty, she never turned her back on the poverty of others,”(Allender, 434). It is this very reason that she is held in high esteem and portrayed as saint like by all those who know. Through the use of similes, diction, and imagery Allende does an exceptional job helping readers understand

Here, Allende communicates some of Eva’s fears regarding Clarisa, she is afraid that the woman she so greatly esteems could actually be a terrible person, and not the saint she makes Clarisa out to be. Eva automatically assumes that Clarisa is a murderer or does not really believe in God, because of the remarks she made, “When I think over my trespasses, there was one that was very grave….” (Allende, 438). This causes the narrator think “if someone ‘saintly’ like Clarisa committed a sin, then it must be a greater than someone who is already basking in sin. “Many expected that at the last moment a significant miracle would occur, such as, the odor of rancid bottles that pervaded the house would be transformed into the perfume of Camellias or beams of consolation would shine forth from her body” (Allende,