Comparing The House Of The Sprits To Chronicle Of A Death Foretld
What differentiates our society with that of the one that was in place two hundred years ago? Ideas are passed on from generation to generation, but each new time period takes those ideas and fashions them into new variations. Honor is one of those ideas. Honor has taken a position in society that no one can deny, but with each passing year, the significance of honor and its effect on society slowly dies. In Latin America, honor’s effect on society was at its peak during the time periods in which The House of the Spirits, by Isabelle Allende, and Chronicle of Death a Foretold, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, take place. In these two classics, the authors show how the two societies place an excessive precedence in honor.
The two authors show how both the societies believe that a reputable public image is everything. To be considered as a family of honor, or high status, every decision that the family makes must withstand the scrutiny of the community. No matter what really goes on inside the house, an honorable family does not let any sign of weakness or trouble show. In The House of the Spirits (Allende, 237), it is evident that Jean de Satigny knows about Blanca’s unborn baby, but in order to uphold the image of being an honorable family he says that he is the child’s father when Blanca asks him if he knows who the real father is. He knows that he is not the real father, but he is willing to live that lie as long as it protects the family from the judgment of others.
Angela Vicario, in Chronicle of a Death Foretold, is also involved in a situation where she has to put up with a lie in order to keep her family’s honor (Garcia-Marquez, 38). In order for women to keep their honor (honor that they technically no longer possess), non-virgin women would trick their husbands into believing that they had been virgins on the night they consummated their marriage. The old wives tell her that as long as she is able to hang up a bed sheet with a red stain onto...
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