Research Guides: Allende, Isabel: Critical Articles

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Authorizing female voice and experience: ghosts and spirits in Kingston's 'The Woman Warrior' and Allende's 'The House of the Spirits.'(Intertextualities)
A type of intertextuality exists in women's writing which is in opposition to the dominant culture, and this is exemplified by two modern novels which utilize ghosts. Maxine Hong Kingston's 1975 novel 'The Woman Warrior' deals with a Chinese American and the spirits of her Chinese ancestors. Isabel Allende's 1985 novel 'The House of the Spirits' covers three generations of a Chilean family. Both novels create authentic female voices by their use of fantasy and the supernatural.
Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus: Between the Chronicle, the Testimonial, and the Love Story
In the following essay, Espadas traces the literary sources that influenced The House of the Spirits. She explains that Allende drew on chronicles of discovery, such as early Spanish texts in the Americas; women’s testimonial narratives, such as those by Clara and Alba; and the basic framework of a love story to present multiple views of a familial history, as well as Chilean social values.

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