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Victoria League
Professor Farrah Cato
LIT3368
15 April 2014
Home Sweet Home
Isabel Allendes novel The House of the Spirits describes and details the life of a family
over generations. The family spends most of their time between two different homes, and as time
goes on, it becomes clear that these characters have a connection to their homes. The importance
of home is a central theme in the novel, and one of the narrators vocalizes this near the end of the
novel: That same day my grandfather wanted us to leave the countryBut I explained that I
could not leave, because far away from my country I would be like those trees they chop down at
Christmastime, those poor rootless pines that last a little while and then die (Allende 423).
Although this statement specifies country, it highlights the importance of being in a place
considered home and the deep connection that a person feels to his or her home. Allende goes
further with this theme by showing that the link goes both ways; the homes seem to depend on
the characters as much as, or more than, the characters depend on their homes. Allende shows
this twist on the theme of a persons connection to home through the parallels between the main
male character, Esteban Trueba, and his respective home, suggesting that homes are lost without
their owners in the same way that people are rootless without their homes.
Esteban Trueba decides to rebuild his family property, Tres Maras, into the best in the
area. It had been in ruins, the tenants struggling to survive, and he accomplishes this task of
reconstruction primarily on his own. None of the other main characters help him, so he considers
himself the sole owner of the property. Tres Maras is so important to him that, when away from
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it, he says, the lazy, empty days in the cityset my nerves on edge. I managed to keep myself
busy, but it wasnt enough: I was always in a bad mood (Allende 113). Away from his home, he
struggles to function well and feels lost, rootless without the comfort of Tres Maras.
Rebuilding the property fosters a connection between him and Tres Maras, a connection that
develops into a physical connection. This is clear in a variety of examples throughout the novel.
Most notably, a severe earthquake destroys much of the countryside, including Tres Maras. The
novel documents this event, noting that Esteban Trueba appeared in the doorway at the very
instant when the house snapped in half like an eggshell and collapsed in a cloud of dust,
flattening him beneath a pile of rubble (Allende 160). When the earthquake causes the house to
collapse, Trueba appears with impeccable timing and is caught in the destruction, breaking all his
bones. Illustrating their connectedness, the earthquake breaks the house in half, and Esteban
Trueba experiences the same breakage: after an hour, when the sun was already shining on
that anguished landscape, they lifted the patrn from his tomb. He had so many broken bones
that they could not be counted, but he was alive and his eyes were open (Allende 160). The
earthquake shatters both Trueba and the house; their injuries are similar and later they require
similar rehabilitation. The concept of their shared healing resurfaces near the end of the novel as
well. Truebas physical connection to his home is so strong that he mirrors its fate in the
earthquake.
Their connection goes both ways; the house reflects Trueba as well. In the novel,
Truebas sister Frula curses him and says that his body and soul will shrivel up (Allende 132).
As time goes on, this becomes true; he seems to shrink in size and he also becomes worn down
with the problems and stresses that he faces in his life. As this is happening, Tres Maras
experiences the same problem. Trueba begins to neglect the property as he focuses more on his
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political career, which he completely dedicates his attention to by hir[ing] a foremanand
put[ting] him in charge of the brood hens and imported cattle at Tres Maras and settl[ing] in the
capital for good (Allende 224). When he abandons Tres Maras for politics, he abandons
himself as well, not seeming to realize that he is unable to separate from his home. He becomes
too invested in his political battles, and it drains the life out of him. Politics distracts him from
his own life and therefore from Tres Maras as well. His personal relationships suffer with his
commitment to politics, as does the property because it shares a deep connection with him. As
Trueba grows older, he realizes that with the weight of age and politics, Tres Maras, like many
other things that had once seemed essential, had ceased to interest him. Its only value was
symbolic (Allende 309). It becomes less important to him and without him there to keep the
place functioning, it falls into ruins much the same way that he does. It faces problems and
stresses just like Trueba. Without his dedication and attention, Tres Maras is lost and losing its
prosperity, becoming rootless and failing to thrive. Slowly but surely, the two of them
physically become more dilapidated and ruined:
the countryside was not as prosperous as beforehe was always busy now and
never had the time to make the tripHis foreman was a man defeated by his own
pessimistic views, and his news was mostly a series of misfortunes: the
strawberries froze, the chickens caught the pip, the grapes rotted. Thus the
countryside, which had been the source of his wealth, became a burden, and
Senator Trueba frequently had to withdraw money from his other businesses to
prop up that insatiable land, which seemed to want to return to the days of
oblivion, before he rescued it from misery. (Allende 308)
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As Tres Maras falls apart, Truebas life is falling apart as well, his happiness steadily declining.
Like Tres Maras, Trueba is insatiable, always wanting more success and needing more to
continue to be happy. He talks of Tres Marass days of oblivion negatively, thinking of the
ruined state it was in before he left his family to rebuild the property; Tres Maras, in his mind,
was oblivious to its own misery. However, Trueba wants to return to his own days of oblivion,
which, although he may not consciously realize it, are the countless days he spent with Clara and
the family. He did not realize how much he prospered in this time period, oblivious to his
security in his family and the troubles that would come after Claras death. They had spent their
days in a whirlwind between two houses, living together and raising a family before politics,
growing old, and the disintegration of the familys relationships began to interfere with Truebas
happiness and the prosperity of Tres Maras. Trueba keeps needing more and more to prop him
up, like Tres Maras needs more money to keep it running, because both are aching to return to
the past. He continuously talks about how much he misses Clara; he wants to return to her and
regain the happiness that she brought him, which his political and financial success cannot fulfill.
Trueba wants to return to his past, to the time before Claras death, and perhaps even to the time
before the deaths of his sister and mother. Although he had difficulties in his relationships with
Frula and his mother when they were still alive, he was saddened by their deaths and felt alone
without them. On that same page of the novel, he refuses to sell the property on the basis that
land is all you have left when everything else falls apart (Allende 308), showing that he knows
how much his life has declined and that without Tres Maras, he would become rootless.
Everything around him has fallen apart; his family is in ruins, the house is suffering without
Clara to nurture it, his finances are dwindling, and he is gaining more political enemies. Clearly,
his life is not as prosperous as it once was, and on some subconscious level he wants to return to
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the time when he had family and success. Two pages before he describes the decline of Tres
Maras, Trueba thinks to himself, Frula was rightmy body and my soul are shriveling up
(Allende 306). Tres Maras reflects Truebas decline by simultaneously experiencing the same
curse and fate that Frula had predicted, suffering from Truebas lack of happiness and his
ferocious longing to regain the prosperity he had experienced in his life with Clara and his family.
The connection between Trueba and Tres Maras is visible in other non-physical ways as
well. Trueba spends much of his energy resisting Pedro Tercero Garcias political ideas, insisting
that they taint the property and its residents. His reasons for prohibiting political change in Tres
Maras originate with his belief that his own ideas are correct and perfect. He himself wont even
listen to Garcia; he does not want to change, and thus does not want Tres Maras to change either.
The property connects to him ideologically, remaining aligned with Truebas beliefs and values.
Clara, however, in her usual fashion, predicts a major point in the novel by telling Trueba that he
cant keep the world from changingif its not Pedro Tercero Garcia, someone else will bring
new ideas to Tres Maras (170). As expected, she is correct; his attempts to resist Garcia
eventually fail, and with the events that take place as political tensions run high, both Trueba and
Tres Maras change and soon accept new ideas. The inhabitants of Tres Maras riot and take
control of their own lives, leading Trueba to return briefly to burn down much of the property in
revenge. The property suffers, as does Trueba; he regrets his actions almost immediately,
realizing that by hurting the property he has hurt himself. He invites the residents to return,
showing that he and the property are willing to accept change. As Trueba discovers new political
ideas and truths, he also suffers and loses his sense of self and importance. Learning about the
reality of the political battle destroys his confidence and he realizes that he had been wrong about
many things. He continues to shrink, becoming less and less sure of himself as his world shatters
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around him, and Tres Maras declines at the same alarming pace. When Alba describes her
ordeal to him, she says that he listened sadly. A world he had thought was good had crumbled at
his feet (Allende 429), demonstrating that his previous steadfast ideals and beliefs had changed
with the reality of the world. Trueba, in his request to Transito to save Alba, describes the
condition of Tres Maras, which parallels his despair and loss of faith in the world: those
ignorant peasants ate my breeding bulls and hitched my racing horses to the plow and in less
than a year Tres Maras was in ruins (Allende 420).
However, there is hope for Trueba and his home. He tells Transito that he has filled the
place with tractors and [is] picking up the pieces, just as [he] did before (Allende 420). As he
works on putting Tres Maras back together, he is also rebuilding himself and accepting the
changes that have occurred in the world and in his life. Rescuing Alba helps him regain the only
family he has left, and working on Tres Maras brings him back to his past as well, combating
the rootless feelings he had felt as the world around him changed and he left behind himself
and Tres Maras.
The commonplace theme of characters feeling lost without their homes is present in
Allendes novel, but she turns the idea around and makes the homes dependent on their owners.
Trueba originally feels lost when he is away from Tres Maras, but as he focuses more on other
aspects of his life and his other stresses, the property is lost without his guidance. They also
experience a physical connection, both suffering similar ways at the same time. At first, Trueba
mirrors Tres Maras when his bones break after the house shatters, but later the house is affected
by his physical and ideological changes and his gradual decline, seeming to depend more on
Trueba than he depends on it. Truebas clear connection to his home shows that, if people invest
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themselves in their homes, their homes will be dependent on them and lost without their
guidance.



Works Cited
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1985. Print.