In my head, I repeat sentences in the voice of Elizabeth Pena: How would she have delivered this line, this sentiment, this description? I'm only a couple of hours into a 19-hour book and hope to finish it. No emotional difference between what lovers say, what one says to the dead, or a grocery list. No way of knowing which character is speaking, or when dialogue becomes prose. The narrators have turned this into a dirge, a really boring dirge. It's uninspired and how anyone anywhere could take anything written by Isabel Allende and turn it into a monotonous chore is beyond me.

Others warned us all that the narration was difficult to listen to. I know now how important it is to read reviews. Then I started The House of the Spirits and.

Ms Pena gave such depth, vivacity, and life to Ms Allende's beautiful, descriptive, and poetic writing through her emotional intelligence and willingness to give the narration her all. By both subverting and writing back against traditional patriarchal narratives regarding women's lives, Allende's characters utilize the power of words through speech and writing to construct portrayals of themselves and their experiences with their own voices.I listened to Elizabeth Pena's gorgeous, luscious reading of the Stories of Eva Luna before moving on to The House of the Spirits. I also discuss the evolution of the characters' perceptions of their personal narrative within their familial narrative, and their familial narrative within the grand narrative of time. Through extensive close reading and analysis of Allende's text, I examine the individual and combined narratives constructed by these methods, and how the characters and author move within patriarchal limitations. This literary critical essay discusses the means through which Allende's characters, and Allende herself, create their own narratives: silence, speech, and writing. Living under a controlling patriarch and an oppressive government, these women strive to reclaim and maintain their identities in a world that denies and rejects their agency and experiences. Isabel Allende's debut novel The House of the Spirits follows three generations of a Chilean family, focusing primarily on the lives of the grandmother, daughter, and granddaughter.

The house of spirits allende