The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

The House of the Spirits is historical fiction written in an engaging style using compelling language. The novel is both enriched and complicated by its incorporation of multiple narrators and political history. Isabel Allende writes of her native Chile, and she often incorporates autobiographical elements as well as the magical realism typical of Latin American literature. Allende creates strong female characters within a typically male-dominated society in Latin America in the mid-twentieth century. She chronicles the life of a family whose patriarch tries to resist changing with the world around him. Through the Trueba family, Allende illustrates the portion of Chilean history preceeding the 1973 coup. The novel explores themes of injustice, personal responsibility, gender roles, and love on complex psychological levels.

About the Series:

Novel/Drama curriculum units contain complete lesson plans with preliminary and follow-up work, teacher notes with plot summary, background, and rationale, ready-to-use worksheets, and suggested answers for student questions. These study guides encourage the development of thinking, reading, speaking, research, and writing skills as well as critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.