Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende Use

¶ … Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende use unconventional story structures, complex themes, and characterizations to convey the social, political, and cultural realities of Latin America. One Hundred Years of Solitude traces the evolution of one town, through the eyes and soul of its most prominent family. In spite of the radical transformations that transpire over the course of one hundred years in the life of Macondo, Marquez shows that some things never change. In particular, social and political realities and the realities of human nature remain the same. Allende conveys a similar theme in The House of the Spirits. The del Valle family shares much in common with Marquez's Buendias family. Moreover, like One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of the Spirits traces the evolution of a family within its social and political environment. Time is cyclical and nonlinear in both One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits, allowing for the exploration of mystical themes related to clairvoyance and prophecy and the exploration of political themes related to gender roles and social oppression.

Both Marquez and Allende show that history itself is a cyclical process, because human nature is constant and human beings are pathetically slow creatures to learn. One of the primary means by which both Marquez and Allende explore the cyclical nature of time in their respective novels is by revealing the continuity of political power throughout several successive generations. In fact, the political realities depicted in One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits are remarkably realistic, given that both novels employ a degree of magical realism to convey the central themes of motifs. In One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits, the long-term effects of colonization are explored. Colonization is presented as an entire system of social oppression, with metaphoric links to the oppression of women, people of color, and the poor.

The more things change in both One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits, the more things remain the same. History and social progress are nonlinear; progress is an illusion. For example, sons take after fathers and daughters after their mothers. Small changes and shifts in perspectives do not lead to appreciable transformations in the lives of individuals. The overarching themes of social oppression, political power, and patriarchy continue to control and dominate the characters in both Marquez's and Allende's novels. Men dominate women, the white residents of Spanish descent dominate the dark-skinned, and the rich dominate the poor. The social, political, and economic hierarchies embedded within One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits perpetuate themselves over time. Though the names of the rulers and their ruling parties change, the underlying political and social realities remain the same. Thus, time and history are cyclical in nature. The concept of linear time and linear progress are but illusions.

By focusing on multiple generations within the same family. Marquez and Allende illustrate the cyclical nature of time. Families are not unified only in their genetic structure but also in their psychological and sociological realities. The Buendias family and the del Valle family become huge and sprawling and yet key traits unify the generations. For example, in One Hundred Years of Solitude some of Jose Arcadio's sons take after his peculiar traits. Incest becomes a symbol for a family that turns inward: and turning is an apt symbol to convey the concept of cycles. In The House of the Spirits, Esteban and Alba recognize themselves in the mirror of Clara's journal, illuminating the cyclical nature of family traits and characteristics.

Left and Right wing politics are explored deftly in both One Hundred Years of Solitude and in The House of the Spirits, and both Marquez and Allende show that these two seemingly opposite poles are actually similar. Thus, the political spectrum is one of the emblems of the cyclical nature of time and human history. Liberals have just as much potential for brutality as Conservatives, and both take advantage of political power to oppress the underclass.

Beyond explorations of political and social realities in Latin America, Marquez and Allende also delve into the mystical and spiritual sides of life to reveal the cyclical nature of time. The supernatural is a key theme in both One Hundred Years of Solitude and The House of the Spirits. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, it is the gypsies that provide the bridge between the mundane material world and the world of the spirit. The use of gypsies is also symbolic in the sense that gypsies exist outside the typical geographic, social and political boundaries that constrain families like the Buendias. This enables the gypsies to life outside of the boundaries of linear time, too. As fringe-dwellers, the gypsies also live outside of the typical human social and political cycles as well as economic cycles. Gypsies play both a symbolic and practical role in One Hundred Years of Solitude, which they do not play in The House of the Spirits. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the gypsies lead a less materialistic life than the residents of Spanish descent and because of this, they can transcend the trappings of time. Their wisdom is a source of power. For example, Melquiades the gypsy is especially important in One Hundred Years of Solitude because of his being able to convey an ancient Sanskrit prophesy that foretells the fate of the Buendias family and Macondo as a whole. The fact that the prophecy exists and was fulfilled shows that time is indeed cyclical: for the nature of clairvoyance transcends time. Similarly, Pilar Ternera has the gift of prophesy. Pilar's power of prophecy transcends time in the same way that gypsies transcend cultural norms.

A similar theme of extra-sensory perception runs through The House of the Spirits. In Allende's novel, it is not gypsies that serve in the role of transcending time and communicating the nonlinearity of space. Clara del Valle herself possesses this gift, showing that the nature of time is cyclical. With the right powers of perception any human being can read past and future, and then apply that knowledge to present situations or problems. Both Allende and Marquez attempt to show that even with powers of extra sensory perception, though, human beings are bound to make the same mistakes over and over. Human beings do not learn from the past and are therefore doomed to repeat it.