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The Privilege Of High-Class In The House Of The Spirits

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In The House of the Spirits, the characters are separated into a lower, working class, and a higher, more privileged, landowning class. The author uses the privilege of high-class citizens not having to suffer consequences to portray the theme of low class people in Latin American suffering injustices. Allende uses the Truebas to show the inequity between the two classes. They are part of the land owning, privileged class that usually doesn’t suffer consequences for its actions. For example Esteban Trueba, a wealthy landowner, found out that Pedro Tercero Garcia, a member of the lower class, was seeing his daughter Blanca. When Esteban approached Blanca, he howled and beat her. Then once they returned home, Clara stood up for Blanca which enraged Esteban even …show more content…

Clara and Blanca then leave Tres Marias and Clara vows to never speak to him again. Subsequently, Esteban goes after Pedro and in his rage cuts off three of his fingers. “I went to the police station in town and bribed the guardsmen to help me look for [Pedro]. I ordered them not to lock him up, but to turn him over to me without any fuss.”(203). Pedro Tercero Garcia, part of the lower class, gets his fingers chopped off because he was seen by Esteban to have caused the chain of events that lead to Clara and Blanca hating him. While Esteban, who beat his wife and cut his daughter’s lover’s fingers off, suffered no consequences. Esteban had the power to order the police to do what he liked, only because of his status. Pedro was left defenseless due to his lower class. He had no authority to help him protect himself against the police, and the wealthy patron. Allende uses Esteban as an example to show how a member of the

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