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Clara accepts Esteban's proposal; she herself has predicted her engagement two months prior, speaking for the first time in nine years. During the period of their engagement, Esteban builds what everyone calls "the big house on the corner," a large mansion in the city where the Trueba family will live for generations. After their wedding, Esteban's sister Férula comes to live with the newlyweds in the big house on the corner.
Severo and Nívea del Valle
When Alba loses her will to live, she is visited by Clara's spirit who tells her not to wish for death, since it can easily come, but to wish to live. Indeed, at every turn Esteban advocates the continuation of the traditional social strata that have given him his power and authority. Marxism, or communism, the movement overthrown by the military dictatorship, threatens his unquestioned power and his continued oppression of the lower classes. But despite his initial support of the dictatorship, Esteban does not thrive under its rule.
Blanca Trueba
A Frenchman named Jean de Satigny comes to stay at Tres Marías and notices Blanca immediately. He follows Blanca when she sneaks out to meet Pedro Tercero and finds them making love by the river. Jean goes directly to Esteban, who jumps on his horse and meets Blanca halfway home. He violently beats Blanca, and when Clara objects, Esteban knocks out Clara’s teeth.
Jaime Trueba
Blanca's reconciliation with her father eventually allows her to flee to Canada with Pedro, where they finally are able to achieve happiness together. Blanca is also able to earn large amounts of money for the first time by selling her clay figurines, which are seen as folk art by Canadians. After her death, Esteban decides to fulfill her dying wish for him to marry and have legitimate children.
The only daughter left is Clara, Severo says, and she refuses to speak and sees ghosts. Clara, finally speaking again, tells Esteban that she has been waiting for him. Esteban falls madly in love with Clara, and they soon announce their engagement at a lavish party, during which Barrabás is mysteriously stabbed and dies in Clara’s lap. Severo and Nívea fear the dog’s death is a bad omen, but the wedding plans progress. Esteban, now a wealthy man, begins construction on a mansion, which soon comes to be known as the big house on the corner, and Clara invites Férula to move in with them.
Analysis of Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits
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Where to Start with Isabel Allende.
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Clara (one of its translations is the equivalent of English "clear", although it is also a common female name) is the key female figure in the novel. She is a clairvoyant and telekinetic who is rarely attentive to domestic tasks, but she holds her family together with her love for them and her uncanny predictions. She is the youngest daughter of Severo and Nívea del Valle, wife of Esteban Trueba, and mother of Blanca, Jaime, and Nicolás.
Pedro Tercero García
Two generations -- Esteban and his granddaughter, Alba -- tell their family's story, which intertwines with the story of Chile's 20th century political struggles. Clara and Blanca return to the big house on the corner, and Clara never speaks to Esteban again. It soon becomes clear that Blanca is pregnant, and Esteban forces her to marry Jean de Satigny to avoid public scandal. Their marriage doesn’t last long, however—Blanca leaves Jean after she discovers his pastime of photographing their male servants naked.
A performance hall at the American Jewish University moonlights as a sci-fi film location set.
He is unable to protect Alba from “disappearing” into its prisons and unable to save her from the torture, rape, and abuse inflicted by Esteban García, the product of her grandfather’s rape of a young peasant girl. Although Esteban does eventually secure Alba’s release by calling in a favor owed to him by a prostitute, all of his power and authority are ultimately proven worthless. Like everyone else, he and his loved ones are subject to the unreasoning tyranny of the dictatorship. Alba (Spanish for "Dawn," Latin for "white") is the daughter of Blanca and Pedro Tercero García, although for many years of her life she was led to believe that Count de Satigny was her father.
Now, Alba is having a baby—a daughter, she knows—though she isn’t sure who the father is. What matters is that the child is her daughter; Alba also know it’s important to record her experiences in her own notebook, so that others will know her story as well. The military regime attempts to eliminate all traces of opposition and eventually comes for Alba. She is made the prisoner of Colonel Esteban García, the son of Esteban Trueba's and Pancha Garcia's illegitimate son, and hence the grandson of Esteban Trueba.
Alba is revealed to be the narrator of the novel, which she writes while she waits for Miguel and for the birth of her child. Though little known to most Americans, the world of Canadian whisky has much to offer the whisky enthusiast. Davin de Kergommeaux’s Canadian Whisky is an excellent place to start learning about Canadian whisky. For a more in-depth view of the best whiskies in Canada, see also the results of the Canadian Whisky Awards, an annual competition founded and managed by Kergommeaux.
Against a backdrop of revolution and counterrevolution, Allende brings to life a family whose private bonds of love and hatred are more complex and enduring than the political allegiances that set them at odds. Severo (literally, "severe") and Nívea ("snowy") are the parents of Rosa, Clara, and several other children. Severo's candidacy for the Liberal Party of Chile promptly came to an end after someone tried to poison him, but killed his daughter Rosa instead.
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