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Patriarchy In Yaa Gyasi's The House Of The Spirits

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As Yaa Gyasi most sagaciously notes in her first novel, “We believe the one who has power. He is the one who gets to write the story. So when you study history, you must ask yourself, Whose story am I missing? Whose voice was suppressed so that this voice could come forth? Once you have figured that out, you must find that story too. From there, you get a clearer, yet still imperfect, picture.” (Gyasi 239) It is this thought that genuinely highlights the harsh truths of history and how only one side of the story is being told. In her novel Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi showcases the neverending cycle of oppression that exists by having each chapter from the point of view of one character. As the chapters move chronologically and without skipping generations, …show more content…

His actions unearth the cruelty and abuse that women and those in lower classes always have and will continue to struggle with. When The House of the Spirits was set, women were expected to obey and depend on their fathers, brothers, and husbands. Additionally, women were expected to act as wives, mothers, and caregivers. Because of this, their education and upbringing were geared towards this goal. An example of patriarchy in the novel is the bright red flag, also known as Esteban Trueba. His treatment of women varied due to their class, looks, obedience, and other qualities. When Esteban was a young man and felt his life was out of control after his betrothed, Clara’s sister, Rosa, died, he went to the small village he owned. When Esteban first moves to Tres Marías, living on his family’s country estate, he violently rapes a young peasant girl named Pancha García. Pancha never fought back becuase “Before her, her mother—and before her, her grandmother—had suffered the same animal fate.”(Allende). This type of violence against women was seen as unfortunate but standard in Pancha's society; most women and young girls learned to expect it. When Pancha García and other women Esteban assaulted become pregnant with his children, society’s influence and Esteban’s terrible personality are evident because he ignores the “bastards,” the mothers, and any other problems that arise in his wake. The volume of the patriarchal society is reflected in Esteban’s requirement for his legitimate sons to carry his name, and it is further mirrored in the disrespectful and abusive way Esteban treats the women in his

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Esteban throughout the book throws multiple temper tantrums in which he smashes things and in one instance responds violently towards his wife and daughter. Esteban's abuse to his wife has significance to the story as a whole because it causes her to never speak to him again. Early on in the book Esteban rapes many of the young tenants on his Hacienda. This significantly affects the plot because one of the grandchildren who was born from a son of one of the rapes, Esteban garcia, would go on to cause a great amount of pain to the trueba

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The Trueba family owns two estates, one in the city, and one in the country, which is called Tres Marias. Many people work to take care of the estate, including Pedro Segundo Garcia, and his son, Pedro Tercero Garcia. Each time the Truebas visited Tres Marias, Blanca and Pedro would be together, and over time fell in love. Their relationship continued developing, with them even “exploring their deepest intimacy, insatiably entering each other’s skins” (175). Esteban would not approve of this relationship, due to Pedro Tercero’s low class and opposing political standpoints.

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However, upon entering a laundromat, they receive sexual comments from men who call them names like "pretty girl" and offer them money in exchange for a kiss. This behavior deeply disturbs Esperanza and her cousins, highlighting the idea that some men view themselves as superior to women and feel entitled to degrade and harass them. Another example of this behavior can be seen in “Red Clowns.” Esperanza gets raped by a boy who insists on her kissing him and refers to her as “Spanish girl.” We can see that this situation incredibly troubles Esperanza to the point where she doesn’t even want to address it.

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The male-dominated society that Esperanza grows up in forces the idea that women are weak and should stay locked in their houses while men go off to work. The men are immoral and seedy, as expressed in the chapter in which a homeless man leers and asks for a kiss from the little girls. Esperanza experiences the evil of her community when she is sexually assaulted, causing her to lose her previous desire to explore her sexuality. Before being assaulted, she wanted to be “beautiful and cruel” like her friend Sally, because Sally was what she understood to be a perfect woman. However, after her rape she decides that she needs to discover her own identity for herself.

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Márquez ridicules traditional gender norms and the sociocultural pressures against men and women through repeatedly criticizing gender expectations held by both men and women in the novel. Márquez juxtaposes the role of men with that of women in Colombian society, writing that “brothers were brought up to be men” and “the girls had been reared to get married” (p.30). Contemporary readers may expect the sentence to read ‘the girls had been brought up to be women’ but Márquez wryly mocks Colombian values by challenging the perceptions of gender held by readers. Juxtaposition is utilised by the author to highlight the power imbalance between men and women in Colombian society, effectively satirizing gender roles. Additionally, Márquez shapes meaning in the sentence with diction through the utilisation of the word ‘brought up’ for men, and ‘reared’ for women, a word which is typically reserved for raising animals.

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