Asusena C. – Two Hundred Years of Solitude

the-house-of-the-spirits volver

When it comes to the Book The House of The Spirits it is hard to try and focus on anyone but the sad excuse of a man, Esteban. However as the story goes on we notice another character go through her own change in characteristics, Clara. We see Clara go from a girl that is excluded from everyone else but her family because of her abilities. Into a caring mother that leaves her childish self muteness in order to live what some would call a normal life. And we sort of see something similar in Raimunda from the movie Volver. But for Raimunda her life went from a fantasy of normal to reality in a matter of hours. With Raimunda we a mother who tries so hard to keep her life under wraps to falling deeper in a trail of secrets. Both women’s lives are never the same and is constantly changing and hitting them with obstacles that they never thought would happen to them. For Clara it was foretelling death and not being able to help and for Raimunda it was to try her hardest to keep a dreadful secret from coming out.

In the movie review by The New York Times talks perfectly of the flip flop that happens in Raimunda’s life. After her husbands death by her sister/daughter, her life never returned to the fantasy of normalcy that she had built. Within the movie we see Raimunda be hit with death, cancer, betrayal,and parental abandonment but we never see her lose her will to keep moving forward. However in the review with Roger we see him talk about how the movie itself was not about death but about the complications that can happen in our everyday lives. We can connect this back to Clara by talking about her clairvoyance, her life is not doomed to just predict death but to help bring peace to those who have past. She also predicts life by accurately predicting the genders of her children as well as to also warn of natural disasters if anyone will pay any mind to her. Both women have their daily challenges but both women also never give up on themselves, no matter what obstacle comes their way.

Works Cited:

Book:

Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1993.

Movie:

Almodóvar, Pedro, Agustin Almodóvar, Esther García, Penélope Cruz, Carmen Maura, Lola Dueñas, Blanca Portillo, Yohana Cobo, Chus Lampreave, Antonio . Torre, Carlos Blanco, José L. Alcaine, and Alberto Iglesias.Volver. , 2007.

Movie review(s):

Scott, A. O. “The Darkest of Troubles in the Brightest of Colors.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 2006.

Ebert, Roger. “Volver Movie Review & Film Summary (2006) | Roger Ebert.” All Content. N.p., 2006.

Movie Scene:

Ebert, Roger. “Volver Movie Review & Film Summary (2006) | Roger Ebert.” All Content. N.p., 2006.

Book Cover:

Anders, Charlie Jane. “Great Science Fiction and Fantasy Authors Who Lived Abroad.” Io9. N.p., 2012.

Within the first few chapters of the book we can see this sort of tipping scale that weighs more on one side for men and women, depending on who they are. When it comes to Esteban we see the scale change which side it tips for him. At first we see him as sort of a good guy but when the girl he wants to be with dies he turns into a completely different person. Tipping the scale to the other side, a side that made him power hunger and an insatiable hunger of taking advantage of those he saw as less than him. And when it comes to which side the scale favors it seems to be men, the gender that has always been seen as superior over females. But as we read more the one female that does seem to have power over Esteban is Transito Soto a prostitute. She is the woman that Esteban sort of falls for and wants to do things for. This type of power of persuasion that Transito has over Esteban is the power of making things seem fine for him when in reality they aren’t; tipping the scales in favor of Transito. However, if we were to look at Esteban’s wife Clara, we see a girl whose scale is never tipping in her favor. She is constantly for seeing bad things happen to the people around her that she felt guilty enough to marry the man of her friend of whom she predicted would die. With this we can see how for men who gain power and money, their scale is in a constant in balance. And for the women in this book we see that the way their life plays out depends on how they choose to feel what has occurred in their lives.

Clara y Raimunda

The scale of life.

Pan’s Labyrinth

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