House of Spirits RC

The House of Spirits by Isabell Allende compared to the movie seems to have very similar plots. The main criticism of these works where the fact that they are both considered to be great works of magical realism. Yet they both exhibit very little true characteristics of magical realism. Isabel Allende tries to mimic a few characteristics if magical realism but seems to fail at her attempts. The main way that that Allende tries to show magical realism is by giving Clara the main character the abilities to be a clairvoyant which is also shown in the movie. By giving Clara clairvoyant abilities one would assume that because these are works of magical realism that her abilities would help to uncover something about the culture or some deeper meaning to what the author is trying to convey, but Allende fails to make Clara’s ability anything but an additional dimension to her plot. There were also a few important characters that were simply not present in the movie. Barabas, Marcos and the twins were not present in the movie. In the novel Barabas seemed to be another one of Allende’s attempts at magic realism. In the novel Barabas is key to her attempt at fusion of time but he is nonexistent in the movie. Another main difference between the novel and the movie is that Estebans character in the movie is played down compared to the novel where he seems to be amore harsh and demanding man. Overall, Allende’s attemps at magic realism seem to have all failed at conveying some type of message, and in the movie they are even weaker because of the missing characters and have some small changes.