House of the Spirits

by Isabel Allende

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How is power portrayed in Like Water for Chocolate and The House of the Spirits?

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Power in both Like Water for Chocolate and The House of the Spirits is portrayed as a patriarchal force that women must subvert to achieve autonomy. These novels explore themes of victimization, sex roles, and love, illustrating how power limits women and is entrenched in male roles. Dominant characters like Mama Elena and Esteban Trueba misuse parental authority, focusing on self-interest and cruelty. Ultimately, both face consequences that lead to moments of self-reflection and potential redemption.

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It could be argued (particulalry with The Houe of th Spirits) that power is portrayed as a patriarchal construct which women must of necessity (and successfully do, usually) subvert. If women cannot subvert this construct then power becomes corrupt and unprincipled (as with the coup near the end of the novel and the relation between Alba and her torturer after she is arrested).

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In Like Water for Chocolate and in House of the Spirits, the idea of power is expressed in one way through the themes of victim and victimization, justice and injustice and the mutual themes of sex roles and love and passion. In the case of sex roles, power is limited by sex role for females and embedded in sex roles for males. For example, in Like Water for Chocolate, Tita is confined by her mother (a fully conquered victim of sex roles) to a strict sex...

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role by restricting Tita to the kitchen where, through magicalrealism, Tita's desires and passions find their way into the food she prepares.

As another example, in House of the Spirits, Esteban comes into sex role related conflict with female characters from employees to peasant women thus emphasizing the conflict detailed between himself and his wife Clara whom he expects to fulfill only the sex role of mother and caretaker of the home. Clara goes beyond this though and teaches the peasant women about equality, but, when the ultimate clash comes with Esteban and Clara moves to the big house, Esteban's ultimate sex role power is shown because of Clara's eventual choice to die, which is surely a result of her experience with Esteban.

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How do dominant characters abuse power in Like Water for Chocolate and The House of the Spirits?

In Like Water for Chocolate and House of the Spirits, the dominating characters are parents, Mama Elena De la Garza and Esteban Trueba, respectively. There is a power that is inherent in parenthood, but it is a power for teaching respect and love, a power to be administered in loving admiration and appreciation for the offspring so that they may flourish and become in the reality of the world the best of what they are inside their small but independently powerful and dignified bodies and minds.

In both instances, Mama Elena and Estaban Trueba use their parental power for self-serving ends and with little or no regard for consequences and the truth of complex situations. While community social traditions may be valuable and useful, they may be enforced, administered and accepted with either giving love or demanding cruelty. Both characters chose to operate from demanding cruelty. In the end though, circumstances showed the psychological development of Mama Elena's demanding cruelty in the hope that she may be forgiven by the characters and the reader for her wrongdoing. Likewise, circumstances showed Estaban that he had been wrong, which softened him and offered him a second chance with his grandchild to live by doing right instead of doing wrong.

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