99 pages • 3 hours read
Isabel AllendeThe House of the Spirits
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 9-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 9 Summary: “Little Alba”
Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to the sexual abuse of a minor.
Blanca makes it home just in time for Alba’s birth. Clara predicts a lucky and happy horoscope for her granddaughter. Alba receives the count’s surname, but he is never heard from again. Amanda and Miguel leave the house when Alba is two weeks old, and the family loses contact with Amanda. Alba’s presence softens Esteban, but it is not enough to repair his relationship with Blanca.
Alba is a small and innocuous child, unlike the other “splendid” women in the family except for having inherited her great-aunt Rosa’s greenish hair. She has an eclectic upbringing with a mixture of input from her grandmother, mother, and two uncles. Clara teaches Alba basic literacy skills, and Alba begins to read all manner of books. Alba is closest to Jaime and is the only one allowed into his room with its tunnel of books, where she accesses all the reading material she desires. Nicolás “ephemeral” nature makes Alba a little uneasy, but she is fond of him too; among other things, he teaches her to withstand pain by visualizing the things she fears the most and remaining stoic.
Clara remains the largest influence in Alba’s life, and the girl accompanies her everywhere, from spirituality meetings to literary soirées. The latter often feature “the Poet—years later considered the greatest of the century and translated into all the known languages on earth” (313). Alba will eventually walk behind his casket at his funeral.
Esteban pampers his granddaughter with the sentiment he is unable to express for the rest of his family; Alba in turn adores her grandfather, and the two spend a couple of weeks together every year at Tres Marías. Esteban’s relationship with the rest of the family deteriorates. He argues with Jaime over politics, insults Nicolás for his eccentricities and past failures, upbraids Blanca for her illicit love affair and failed marriage, and barely speaks to Clara.
Blanca once again begins a secret affair with Pedro Tercero, now a famous singer, and goes out every weekend to meet him. She introduces Alba to him but does not reveal that he is Alba’s father. Blanca also takes up ceramics again; her crèches become a huge attraction and sell like hot cakes.
When Alba is six years old, she meets García for the first time. He comes to Tres Marías to ask Esteban for a recommendation to the police academy. Alba finds him waiting in the library; she chats with him and climbs onto his knee, and García fondles her under her clothes. Esteban eventually arrives, but Alba flees and does not tell her grandfather what happened.
The following year, Clara foresees her death and begins to give away her possessions, leaving notes for her loved ones and giving Blanca all the jewels she owns. The rest of the family realizes she will soon die, and Alba is the only one not disturbed by this; she has internalized her grandmother’s teaching that death is merely a change. Clara passes away a few days later, surrounded by her family, the servants, and the Mora sisters.
Chapter 10 Summary: “The Epoch of Decline”
The night Clara dies, Esteban locks himself in her room and spends the night lying beside her body and talking to her; he shrinks four inches but finally feels reconciled with Clara. In the morning he asks his children to bury Nívea’s head when they bury Clara. A huge crowd, including Pedro Segundo García and most of the tenants from Tres Marías, attends Clara’s funeral. Afterwards, Esteban designs a mausoleum to house Rosa and Clara alongside his own body when he passes away. The mausoleum takes two years to complete. When it is done, Esteban and Jaime break into the del Valle family cemetery and steal Rosa’s coffin.
After Clara’s death the house falls into ruins and is no longer frequented by guests or spirits. Jaime and Nicolás lose interest in their family without Clara to keep everyone together. Jaime continues his medical practice in service of the poor, and his socialist ideas distance him further from Esteban. Nicolás begins a spiritual cult with himself as the leader, but his eccentricities are too much for Esteban to bear, and he ships Nicolás overseas with enough money to settle down and live out the remainder of his life there. Esteban enrolls Alba in a British school, a decision that Blanca supports because she wants Alba to be educated and independent.
Blanca tries to keep the house from falling apart but does not have the resources to do so. She sells some of the jewels Clara left her to make ends meet. Despite the struggles, she is the one stable influence in Alba’s life after Clara’s death, their bond kept strong by the stories Blanca tells her daughter at bedtime. Alba begins to write and record things like her grandmother did to keep these stories alive.
Esteban throws his energies into his political work, becoming fanatical about preventing the Communists from coming to power. His fellow party members are unworried about such an event occurring, but Esteban remains violently vigilant. His finances begin to decline and Tres Marías becomes a drain on his resources; the new foreman, installed after Pedro Segundo’s departure, only has bad news for him about the estate.
Pedro Tercero continues to gain popularity among the masses with his music and his political messages. He meets Blanca in secret and spends time with Alba too. Alba never mentions Pedro Tercero around her grandfather, implicitly understanding that “something terrible” passed between the two men.
To lift his spirits, Esteban’s friends take him to the Christopher Columbus sometime after Clara’s death. There he reencounters Tránsito Soto, who has accomplished her dreams for the place—after forming a cooperative of sex workers, she took charge of the place and transformed it into a highly reputed and flourishing business. Esteban and Tránsito Soto have sex after which he sobs in her arms, “weep[ing] out all the misery and loneliness of recent years” (352).
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Awakening”
Alba goes to university to study philosophy and music when she is 18; here she meets and falls in love with Miguel, who is now a law student in his final year and a leftist leader. More out of love for Miguel than ideological conviction, she joins him and the other students when they occupy a university building in solidarity with a workers’ strike. Alba calls home to tell her family where she is. Esteban is furious and asks her to come home immediately, but there is no way for Alba to leave, as armed police forces surround the building.
Alba spends three days in the building alongside Miguel, the other students, and Sebastián Gómez, the only professor striking with the students. By the third day she experiences unbearable stomach cramps and begins menstruating. The pain, humiliation, and unusually heavy blood flow make Alba miserable, and Miguel and a fellow student, Ana Díaz, help Alba leave the building on Professor Gómez’s instructions. García, who recognizes Alba as Esteban’s granddaughter, meets them outside. Alba remembers García from Tres Marías. While their first meeting at the library is fuzzy in her memory, they met again on her 14th birthday. García had been visiting the house and came upon her in the garden, where he forcibly kissed her, choking her while he did so. Once again Alba did not tell anyone what happened, but she has had nightmares of García as a “beast in the shadows” ever since (364).
Miguel and Alba begin to meet secretly in the basement of the Trueba house, falling deeper in love; Miguel vaguely remembers having visited the house before. A year later Miguel graduates and begins to look for work while also resuming his political activities. Alba asks to join him and the guerrillas, but Miguel tells her that they can only accept those who want to join out of true political conviction.
Jaime is the only family member who knows about Alba and Miguel’s relationship, although he does not recognize the latter as Amanda’s brother. While he admires Miguel, he disagrees with his view that revolution inevitably requires violence and bloodshed. Jaime and Miguel both hope for a Socialist Party victory, and this year it looks imminent; Jaime hears this from “the Candidate” himself, the same man who has been vying for the presidency for 18 years. Jaime and the Candidate have secretly been friends since Jaime treated the latter’s mother. As each side ramps up their campaign activities, however, Jaime becomes horrified by the “violent turn” things seem to be taking. Miguel believes that regardless of who wins, a “peaceful, democratic revolution” will achieve nothing (372).
Chapter 12 Summary: “The Conspiracy”
As the Candidate (now “the President”) predicted, the Socialists win the elections. Esteban and the other members of the Conservative Party react in shock but soon begin strategizing ways to topple the new government. The idea of bribing the congress surfaces, but Esteban does not believe this will work and wants to use their resources to buy the media and manipulate public opinion. General Hurtado suggests a military coup if all else fails. In keeping with Esteban’s assertion, bribery fails, and the new government comes to power.
With a shortage of skilled men in the leftist parties, Pedro Tercero must work at a desk job for the new government. This leaves him with little energy to furtively meet with Blanca; wanting instead to come home to her every day, he asks her to marry him. Blanca answers evasively, and Pedro Tercero issues an ultimatum that she either agree, or they part ways forever. Blanca does not take this seriously, and the two separate angrily. It becomes clear in a few days that Pedro Tercero is not coming back to her, and Blanca is turned away when she tries to contact him.
The right secretly expends vast resources to destabilize the economy, causing a nationwide shortage of goods. Blanca begins to stockpile black-market supplies in the house; Alba steals from this stock and gives the piles to Miguel to distribute amongst the poor. Esteban begins to buy and hide weapons in the house, confirming Miguel’s theory that the right is arming itself to take back power. Alba employs Jaime’s help to steal from this stock as well. Uncle and niece then visit the countryside on the pretext of a camping trip and bury their loot there.
Tres Marías is expropriated through the agrarian reform; the peasants form a cooperative and take control of the estate. A furious Esteban drives down to the estate armed with a gun, but the peasants overpower and capture him. Cameras and reporters arrive at Tres Marías, and the news telecasts the capture of a prominent Conservative Party member. Fearing damage to his own party’s reputation, the President orders the national guard to free Esteban; however, the peasants at Tres Marías refuse to let the guard through, demanding a court order. Eventually, Blanca pays Pedro Tercero a visit, forcing her way in along with Alba; it has been two years since she and Pedro met. Alba finally learns that Pedro Tercero is her father, and Blanca demands that he help free Esteban. Pedro Tercero manages to safely evacuate Esteban.
The situation in the country continues to deteriorate over the next few months with each political group working to best the other; this struggle consumes everyone’s energies, and work gets neglected across the board. With the professors on indefinite strike, Alba does not have classes to attend; she divides her time between Miguel’s company and helping Jaime at the hospital. Amanda too works there, wanting to be close to Jaime; however, Jaime does not feel the same passion for her that he used to and feels suffocated by the relationship.
Luisa Mora, the last remaining Mora sister, pays the Truebas a visit. She foretells bad times ahead bringing death and violence; Esteban will be on the winning side but will endure “suffering and loneliness” (405). She also brings Alba a message from her grandmother, warning her that she is in grave danger and should cross the ocean to remain safe. At this, Esteban throws Luisa Mora out, but he remembers her words 10 months later when her prediction comes true.
Chapters 9-12 Analysis
Alba is introduced to the story, which from the outset presents her as extraordinary: She inherits her aunt Rosa’s green hair (which perhaps endears her to Esteban), Esteban himself softens with the arrival of his granddaughter, and Clara pronounces Alba’s horoscope to be an especially lucky one. The reader is left to interpret what this luck may mean and how true it holds as the story progresses.
Clara remains the strongest influence in Alba’s life for as long as she is alive, with Alba accompanying her grandmother to various events and soirées (it is in this context that “the Poet,” a character based on Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, first appears). Though Alba does not inherit Clara’s clairvoyance, she seems to exhibit the same equanimity and character as her grandmother. After Clara’s death, Blanca becomes the stabilizing influence in Alba’s life, their bond forged by the del Valle tradition of storytelling. Nívea’s stories, passed down through Clara and Blanca, reach Alba, and Alba even begins to record them as Clara once did.
Unlike her mother, Alba has close and affectionate relationships with the men in her family, including her uncles and her grandfather. Even as Esteban’s relationships with the rest of his family continue to deteriorate, he shares a special bond with Alba. This relationship becomes all the more important to Esteban when Clara passes away; despite Esteban’s past affairs and estrangement from his wife, there is no woman he has loved as much as Clara. The depth of his sorrow at losing Clara is clear when he weeps in Tránsito Soto’s arms after they meet again at the Christopher Colombus.
Esteban and Tránsito Soto’s meeting is one of many reunions in these chapters. At Alba’s birth Amanda and Miguel exit the Truebas’ lives, but they reappear again when Alba is 18 and play important parts in the story. Miguel and Alba begin a romantic relationship, echoing her mother’s forbidden affair with a man of a different socioeconomic and political background than her own. As in Blanca’s case, Alba does not share Miguel’s political fervor but accompanies and assists him in his efforts out of love. For all the del Valle women, love supersedes ideology. Blanca and Pedro Tercero also reunite for a spell; they separate (this time of their own volition) when Blanca refuses to marry Pedro Tercero, only to meet again when Blanca seeks his help in freeing Esteban from the peasants at Tres Marías.
Clara’s death and the burial of Nívea’s head alongside her (in a chapter aptly titled “The Epoch of Decline”) foreshadow great change. Clara’s departure from the narrative heralds an entirely different era, with the house falling to ruin and the political climate changing drastically. Esteban’s frantic efforts at preserving his party’s power come to naught as the Socialists win the elections. The “Candidate” reemerges as the “President,” and a link emerges between him and Jaime. Though Esteban never learns of it, the relationship is an important one with significant consequences for the Trueba household in the coming chapters.
The political state of events parallels what is happening to the Truebas. Esteban loses Tres Marías as part of the left’s agrarian reform and is humiliatingly held hostage by his own tenants when he goes to reclaim it. He eventually has to be rescued by Pedro Tercero, a man who is his social and ideological nemesis and whom Esteban deems responsible for the rift between him and Blanca.
It is not merely a division between left and right that is evident in these chapters, however; even among those of the same ideological bent, there appears dissent about methodology. Jaime is alarmed by the violent turn that the recent elections take, while Miguel is dissatisfied with democratic victory. Esteban wants to control the media to win back power, while others in his party hope to bribe the congress; General Hurtado further suggests a military coup, hinting at events to follow.
Alba’s interactions with García are also full of foreboding. She encounters García for the very first time as a child when he arrives at Tres Marías to request a recommendation to the police academy. Esteban issues this recommendation—something that will have important consequences for his family later. Alba and García’s very first encounter is a disturbing one, and the subsequent interactions she has with him are consistently unpleasant. Though she does not clearly remember him molesting her as a child, she remembers the forced kiss at 14, and García continues to haunt her nightmares; his appearance as a beast waiting to suffocate her has a premonitory tone.
Luisa Mora’s prediction, which arrives at the end of Chapter 12, heightens the sense of coming calamity. Esteban dismisses Luisa’s warning that death dogs Alba’s heels, which stands in sharp contrast to Clara’s birthday predictions of a lucky life for Alba; however, the chapter ends with foreshadowing that Luisa’s prediction does indeed come true.
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