Ursula's daughter is also defined primarily in relation to gender, and her desire and her relationship, or lack thereof, with men. Unlike her life-sustaining mother, Amaranta never marries, and instead spends her entire life mourning her lost love. But Allende's main feminine romantic heroine, Alba, is not merely psychologically bruised by the loss of her love, but is physically tortured at the hands of Esteban Garcia, Esteban Trueba's illegitimate son. This occurred with great frequency in Chile during the time when this part of the novel is set. Although Alba is devoted to her husband Miguel, this devotion does not preclude Alba from having a strong voice and will and the ability to withstand disappointment, even torture. Unlike the perpetually forlorn Amaranta, Alba transcends all stereotypes and resolves to tell the story of her clan to the world to use her unhappiness in a productive manner, although she is also a loyal wife.
Thus, in Marquez, women tend to fall into the category of either being proud mothers and wives of great strength, not sexual beings, or women defined by their beauty and sensuality.
In Allende, even stereotypically feminine norms, like a greater psychological closeness to the spirit world, as manifested in Clara, have another aspect, like Clara's quiet defiance of her husband that enables the story of Alba to be told to the world. Clara "was already in the habit of writing down important matters, and afterward, when she was mute, she also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that fifty years later I would use her notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own," writes Alba. (Allende 2)
In Marquez's novel, women are the keepers of faith and religion, not the tellers of the stories of their family. Women dwell as bodies, not as bodies and spirits. For example, the women Pilar and Petra begin the novels sexual, beautiful, and desirable, unlike the stalwart Ursula. The whore Pilar begins the novel a young...
There is no in-between, between the excesses of female desire and flesh for Marquez, women are matriarchs or whores, earth goddesses, or young and desirable beings, while in Allende, and Clara's material ability to give birth does not preclude her from having a spiritual dimension that eventually subsumes her societal role as a mother.
The treatment of prostitution and the fate of the lower classes are particularly notable when making a contrast between both tales. In The House of the Spirits, the cruel treatment of the peasant girl, Pancha, becomes the source of class hatred and revolt. Pancha is casually raped by Esteban Trueba, and bears the man who will torture his beloved granddaughter, as the political situation in the land begins to alter. Prostitution in Marquez's village is humorous, casual, and a parody of female beauty and the flesh, rather than an analysis of how such desire might have later emotional or political consequences for women and the persons involved.
Allende's novel is potent testimony to the fact that traditional female figures, like spiritual women, mothers, lovers, or prostitutes need not be treated in a stereotypical manner. Marquez's novel is a fascinating, sprawling tale, but plot, fantastic language, and inflated detail arouse the reader's interest, rather than the characters themselves. This relates to the overall, larger themes of both novels -- Allende ultimately seeks to question the reasons for man's inhumanity to men, and women, in a political reality, and uses magical realism to heighten the consequences of her character's actions and cruelties, while Marquez relates his tale of a fictional village and family exclusively in the register of the fantastic and the surreal.
Works Cited
Allende, Isabel. The House of the Spirits. New York: Bantam, 1986.
Marquez, Gabriel Garcia. One Hundred Years of Solitude. New York: Perennial, 1998.
