In the novel, The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende shows how many things throughout the story that repeats itself. Things such as Esteban’s sexual need, the number of people kept in the book, the genealogical order and how Clara’s innocent appearance continues and does not change. The changes that happen in this book are not that noticeable but if you really look for them you would be able to find them.
Esteban constantly has sexual desires. Before he met Clara, he raped a young girl named Pancha. He used her a few times to fulfill his needs. Esteban always said that he wasn’t a man for whores, but yet he still went to Red Lantern, a brothel. “Not a girl passed from puberty to adulthood that he did not subject to the woods, the riverbank, or the wrought-iron bed” (63). Fathers would get scared for their daughters and hide them because Esteban had the p
ower to do whatever he wanted since he was the patron. After he met Clara and she got pregnant he started going back to the brothel because he could not live without the sex. When Clara had her baby she got pregnant again and he went to the brothel again. It seems like a continuous cycle that goes on between Clara and the brothel. Esteban also goes to the brothel when he and Clara are in a fight. For example, one time “he lost control and struck her in the face, knocking her against the wall” (200). He claims to love her, but the way he acts and treats her it seems like he only loves the physical part of their relationship.
Clara is treated like an angel for basically her whole life. When she was younger Nana took care of her. After Ferula, Esteban’s sister, moved in with them, Ferula “bathed her in jasmine and basil water... and brushed her hair until it was soft and shiny” (96). Cla
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