| The Novels ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude’ And ‘Th Essay, Research Paper
“I had lost my wife and my daughter. My mother, my sister, dear old
Nana?were all dead. Even Rosa returned to haunt me like an unforgettable
grief.”a Both ‘One hundred Years Of
Solitude’ and ‘The House Of The Spirits’ have men as their most apparent
decision makers, but behind the scenes women control and influence the decisions
of men to the extent that without the input of these few women, the course of
the plots in these novels would have taken an entirely different route. Each of
these women represents a different entity and each has a different way of
influencing the men in their lives. Ursula Buendia from
‘Solitude’b, and Clara Trueba from ‘House
of Spirits’c are the matriarchs in their
respective novels and therefore the most influential women in their novels.
Clara manipulates the course of decisions through her mystical ways of
forecasting. Ursula on the other hand communicates with Jose Arcadio Buendia and
influences him in a more firm and stable manner through her assertive
personality. Clara has a tremendous influence over Esteban’s decisions through her
mysterious and mystical ways. “Clara the clairvoyant could interpret
dreams.”e She is such a mysterious person, which
attracts Esteban to her and what little he knows and understands about her, and
at the same time tells him to keep his distance until she allows him to approach
her, like the time she left Tres Marias two days after he hit her and he did not
try to stop her. “Clara never spoke to her husband again? Two days
later, Clara and Blanca left Tres Marias.”f This
shows Clara’s indifferent attitude towards Esteban’s feelings and establishes
that Clara does not need Esteban as much as he needs her. Clara from then on
seemed to control most of Esteban’s thoughts, lifestyle and emotions through
“I felt so alone after that?Loneliness would never leave
me.”gEsteban bent over backwards in order to
please Clara “It was the special surprise he had prepared for
her.”h Ursula has different characteristics than Clara, but she too is dominant over
her husband’s decisions. She is assertive, firm and capable and has
“unbreakable nerves”mand will stand no
nonsense from Jose Arcadio Buendia or his crazy notions. She prevents Jose
Arcadio Buendia from leaving Macondo. “We will not leave?We will stay
here.”u The matriarchs influence their families because they take care of their
families and they are the heads of their families while their husbands pursue
other interests like dedicating time to Tres Marias in the case of Esteban
“I was going to spend many years – perhaps even my whole life – Tres
Marias.”i and thus the husbands are ineffective
in managing their households and thus showing the matriarchs dominance in their
households.. Jose Arcadio Buendia for example pursues his interests in science and
therefore forgets that he has a family “Instead of going around thinking
about your crazy inventions, you should be worrying about your sons? Look at the
state they are in, running wild just like
donkeys.”j Ursula reprimands him for neglecting
his children and thus exercises her influence by stopping him to have a look at
the world around him and take responsibility for his family. Esteban on the other hand pursues his interests in Tres Marias and whilst
building it up he forgets about Ferula and his Mother. “It bothered her?
bored, tired and unhappy while her brother had no taste of such
obligations.”k The author’s use of a list of
words to portray the extent of ferula’s frustrations. It reveals that Esteban
does not care about handling his sick mother or the household and leaves that to
Ferula. Esteban later pursues his business interests and politics and forgets
about his family. “Esteban Trueba was so busy ? that he had no time to
think about anything.”l This includes his family
and mother and sister. Whilst their husbands are pursuing their interests and busy, the wives are
busy taking over their households and organizing and restructuring them
according to their own tastes. Ursula was a strong woman and “thanks to
her the floors of tamped earth, the unwhitewashed mud walls? were always
clean.”m Whilst Clara worked “between the sewing
workshop, the general store, the school.”n This shows that
Clara is not as clairvoyant as she seems and is capable of taking
responsibility. The wives are using their husband’s weak influences in the domestic area to
fight their husband’s dominance and therefore they use time and familiarity as
tools. Over time the household’s become use to the matriarchs as the backbones
of the family. The households’ familiarity with the women makes the matriarchs
more willing to fill in the gaps left by their husbands. Also the actions of the
husbands alienate themselves from the rest of the rest of the family. Esteban’s
violence alienates him from his family “He lost control and struck her
in the face, knocking her against the wall? Clara never spoke to her husband
again,”o and Jose Arcadio Buendia’s crazy fits accelerate
his loss of influence over his household. “He acquired a habit of
talking to himself, of walking through the house without paying attention to
anyone? his feverish activity was interrupted and was replaced by a kind of
fascination,”p Jose Arcadio Buendia’s crazy fits
forces Ursula to take action and since she loves him and wont let him go on
crazy journeys, she ties him to a tree for the rest of his days. “?With
the savage violence of his uncommon strength he smashed to dust the equipment in
the alchemy laboratory?ten men were needed to get him down, fourteen to tie him
up?left him tied up, barking in the strange language and giving off a green
froth at the mouth.”vThe deliberate exaggeration
in the choice of words show how undesirably violent Jose Arcadio Buendia could
be. Both men had traits that made them undesirable and made them stand out from
the rest of their households. Jose Arcadio Buendia’s fits and Esteban’s violence
led them to slowly destroy any links and with that any influence they ever held
over their families. Clara and Ursula’s influence does not only affect the men in the family.
Their influence is powerful enough to affect the direction of the plots of both
novels since through the males they influence the direction that the plot takes.
These two female characters have portrayed actions and influences that affected
the plot to the extent that their actions have been felt throughout their
respective novels. Clara influences the plot in “House of Spirits” when Esteban
becomes more humble and realizes that he has lost Clara the night he hit her
“He knelt by her side, crying and begging her forgiveness, trying to
explain,”q and since then she has not spoken to
him. Clara does not tell him about her feelings but rather withdraws in to
silence and thus portrays this image for Esteban to take as a form of a victory.
Esteban also does not understand Clara and thus he struggles to win back her
favor without ever succeeding. “Two days later, Clara and Blanca left ?
Esteban ? remained with a sensation that something in his life had been
destroyed forever.”r Ursula on the other hand is quite different to Clara in reacting to events
and she fights for justice and what she believes in. When the story becomes more
chaotic due to the war, Colonel Aureliano Buendia goes to fight while Jose
Arcadio becomes the dictator of Macondo. Ursula shows her influence by being
firm with her son and limiting his activities and getting rid of his laws.
“Whipping him without mercy? Arcadio curled up like a snail? From that
time on she was the one who ruled in the
town.”sThe simile clearly portrays Arcadio’s
defensive instincts and helplessness. Therefore, Ursula exercises her influence
over him as a matriarch and as a mother and she holds that influence until old
age when she became too weak physically to exercise her influence over the
family and thus the children started playing with her like a doll
“Ursula cried in lamentation when she discovered that for more than
three years she had been a plaything for the
children,”t and the adults began to leave and
slowly the household that Ursula had managed for most of a century began to fall
apart. Ursula is given an image of a toy for the children, the opposite image of
what she used to really be before.Even though these two novels seem to
be dominated by men, in this essay I have shown that in fact women are more
influential then men and thus dominate the action. The matriarchs are the most
influential of all the women; it is in fact arguable that their influence is
such that they have a possibility of being the protagonists in the novel due to
their influence on events. Footnotes a)House Of Spirits – pg 235 b)Key: Solitude is short for ‘One Hundred Years Of Solitude’ by G.G.M c)Key: House Of Spirits – ‘The House Of The Spirits’ By Isabelle Allende. e) House Of Spirits – pg 95 f) House Of Spirits – pg 234 g) House Of Spirits – pg 235 h) House Of Spirits – pg 119 i) House Of Spirits – pg 69 j) Solitude – pg 14 k) House Of Spirits – pg 59 l) House Of Spirits – pg 71 m) Solitude – Pg 9 n) House Of Spirits – pg 127 o) House Of Spirits – pg 233-234 p) Solitude – pg 4-5 q) House Of Spirits – pg 234 r) House Of Spirits – pg 234 s) Solitude – Pg 108-109 t) Solitude – pg 339 u) Solitude – pg 14 v) Solitude – pg 81 Word Count: 1,475 words BIBLIOGRAPHY Book: The House Of The Spirits Author: Isabel Allende Publisher: Cox & Wyman Ltd, A Black Swan book. Date Published: Black Swan edition 1998 Copyright Date: 1985 by Isabel Allende & Alfred A.
Knopf, Inc. Book: One Hundred Years Of Solitude Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez Publisher: Penguin Group Date Published: Penguin books 1972 Copyright Date: 1970 by Harper & Row, Publishers
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