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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 in the last chapter:
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 farm 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, and says that he soon felt at home in the country
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(Allende 54). Tres Maras is so important to him that, when away from 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 connection 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. 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, showing that his physical connection to his home is so strong that he
mirrors its fate in the earthquake. Their injuries are similar and they even require similar
rehabilitation; the concept of their shared healing resurfaces near the end of the novel as well.
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 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
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to neglect the property as he focuses more on his 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. 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 ruin much the same way that he does. It faces problems and
stresses just like Trueba. Without his dedication and attention, Tres Maras is 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)
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 to continue to be happy. He
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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 following Claras death, after which he used to walk around as if [he]
were lost, looking for her everywhere (Allende 292). 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.
Even though Tres Maras becomes dilapidated, 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, his house in the city is suffering
without Clara to nurture it, his finances are dwindling, and he is gaining more political enemies.
Tres Maras is all he has left, so he cannot bring himself to sell it. 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, stemming from Truebas lack of
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happiness and his ferocious longing to regain the prosperity he had experienced in his life with
Clara and his family. His life is not as prosperous as it once was, and on some subconscious level
he wants to return to the time when he had family and success.
The connection between Trueba and Tres Maras is visible in non-physical ways as well.
Trueba spends much of his energy fighting Pedro Tercero Garcas 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, evident when he rants
that without me this place would have been a wreck and stayed one, not even Jesus Christ said
we have to share the fruits of our labor with the lazy, and that little shit Pedro Tercero dares to
say that on my land (Allende 170). He himself will not even listen to Garca; 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 Garca, someone else will
bring new ideas to Tres Maras (170). As expected, she is correct; his attempts to resist Garca
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 from Garca and others. 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: disgusted with
himself, the patrn returned to the city, feeling older than ever. His soul weighed heavy
(Allende 387). To atone for his guilt and his actions, he invites the residents to return, showing
that he and the property are willing to accept change.
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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 around him, and Tres Maras declines at the same
alarming pace. When Alba describes her experience as a prisoner 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 Trnsito 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). Outside factors take away bits and pieces of Truebas life and the
property at Tres Maras and they both end up ruined.
However, there is hope for Trueba and his home. He tells Trnsito 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. He is able to
combat the rootless feelings he had felt as the world around him changed and he left behind
himself and Tres Maras, illustrating that he has accepted his connection to his home.




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