Oppression In The House Of The Spirits

For centuries women have been oppressed and looked down on, and until the 20th century have they finally been recognized for their importance. In the novel The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, allende uses the motif of Women’s oppression to highlight the dehumanization of women and the inconsiderate actions towards them by the patriarchy, this reveals the women’s, resilience, intelligence and ultimately their strong willful strive for independence and respect. The motif of Women’s oppression is firstly introduced through the character of Ferula Trueba, Esteban’s sister, who spends most of her life trapped at home taking care of her sick dying mother. “I would like to have been born a man, so I could leave too,” she said,

Nivea, Clara’s mother who is a suffragette is one of the characters who we know participates in clear pro women’s right’s ideals. “At times Clara would accompany her mother and two or three of her suffragette friends on their visits to factories, where they would stand on soapboxes and make speeches to the women who worked there while the foremen and bosses, snickering and hostile, observed them from a prudent distance. Despite her tender age and complete ignorance of matters of this world, Clara grasped the absurdity of the situation and wrote in her notebook about the contrast of her mother and her friends, in their fur coats and suede boots, speaking of oppression, equality, and rights to a sad, resigned group of hard-working women in denim aprons, their hands red with chilblains.”(90) Nivea and her suffragette friends are clear representation of pro-women’s rights and as Clara as the narrator we come to realize the affect of society on the younger generation. Clara describes the situation as “absurdity” and sees the contrast between Nivea’s group and the hard-working women. Allende’s use of Clara in this scene was to ultimately show the class differences between the women and how it may play a role in the overall idea that class struggle and gender are important in the oppression of women. “He had finally come to accept—beaten into it by the tide of new ideas— that not

“If you want, I’ll tell you my story so you can write it down,” one said. Then they laughed and made jokes, arguing that everybody’s story was the same and that it would be better to write love stories because everyone likes them. They also forced me to eat. They divided up the servings with the strictest sense of justice, each according to her need; they gave me a little more because they said I was just skin and bones and not even the most desperate man would ever look at me. I shuddered, but Ana Diaz reminded me that I was not the only woman who had been raped, and that, along with many other things, it was something I had to forget. The women spent the whole day singing at the top of their lungs. The guards would pound on the wall. Shut up, whores! Make us if you can, bastards! Let’s see if you dare!” And they sang even stronger but the guards did not come in, for they had learned that there is no way to avoid the unavoidable.” (474) When Alba is arrested by the new government and put into a women’s concentration camp she and Ana Diaz show their resilience by givng the officers the opposite reaction. The women within the camp are, raped, beaten, and tortured but they show their strength by showing they can still smile and laugh, even in the position they’re currently in. Allende’s use of abuse, and oppression highlights the strength and