Reality VS. Fiction

The Stories of Eva Luna: The Judge's Wife

The House of The Spirits

The House of the Spirits is based of Allende's childhood living with her grandparents. The two main characters in the novel are Clara the Clairvoyant and her husband Esteban. Clara resembles Allende's grandmother because they are both bizarre and played around with the supernatural arts. Esteban resembles Allende's grandfather because both were very practical and created a depressing environment after the death of their wives.

The Judge's Wife is about a woman named Casilda who is married to Judge Hidalgo, a man who is harsh in punishment and unfair on who he punishes. Allende brings out her thoughts of feminism when she portrays Casilda as submissive and oppressed by Hidalgo and gives the reader the idea that she is solely there for her husband's need of love, her children, and to lack a life that would contribute to any ideals her husband rules against. However, when Hidalgo uses an innocent old woman as revenge and bait for his enemy, Casilda goes out to save her before she could die, going against the will of her husband. Coming to the end of the story, Casilda and her family are trying to escape Hidalgo's enemy by driving to another town. Hidalgo has a heart attack and dies when he wrecks the car. Casilda grabs the children and leads them to a cave where she tells them to remain and hide no matter how loud she screams for help. She goes back to face Hidalgo's enemy, Nicolas Vidal and allows herself to be raped by him in order to keep her children alive for a little bit longer. Casilda went from being a submissive wife of a harsh husband to still sacrificing herself to her husband's enemy for her children.

The Sum of Our Days is an extension of Paula, a memoir filled with letters to her daughter. However, the tone in this memoir is filled with joy, humor, and warmth because she had finally accepted the death of Paula. This specific work is proof that Allende's writings are revolved around her friends and family. She reveals great details regarding her personal life as well as others. Allende reveals intimate information about her and her husband's relationship, a search for pornography with her mother, and her former daughter-in-law leaving her husband to move in with another boy's girlfriend because she realized she was a lesbian. Therefore, The Sum of Our Days is another example where her writings were driven by surrounding drama that she was experiencing and was writing as an outlet for stress and to stay connected to Paula.

Allende admitted that writing this memoir helped her recover from grief. "I had a choice...Was I going to commit suicide? Sue the hospital? Or was I going to write a book that would heal me?" In this memoir, we are taken through the suspenseful events leading up to Paula's death, as well as the dreadful feelings afterwards. By keeping an account of her life story throughout the stages of Paula's hospitalization, Allende was able to express her grief as well as cope through the unavoidable tragedy. It became evident that her suffering or the suffering of others has become a source of inspiration for Allende, considering most of her famous writings, such as Paula, were originated or filled with personal letters about her most tragic moments.

As Paula's life slowly declines, Allende used her writings in order to accept her daughter's death. By sharing her story, Allende is able to use her creative talents to not only empower herself, but to also decipher her own grief and acquire confidence within her work and her own personal strength. "I was able to put everything together in these pages in such a way that I could then see a light at the end a very dark tunnel," says Allende.

The Sum of Our Days

Paula

Allende is known for living a life that is just as dramatic as her stories. Here are few examples that I or others have observed that Allende used to connect her life with her writings. She also incorporates her beliefs of feminism within her stories.