Sex Roles in House of The Spirits

What forms an important part of the novel?

The struggle of women to acheive equality forms an important part of the novel and is reflected in the clashes of the various female characters against Esteban Trueba.

Esteban believes that a womens duty is…

“motherhood and the home.”

Esteban recognises that his wife’s role is a difficult one. What quote shows this?

“I would not have liked to be a woman.” (said to Férula when she expresses her biterness at having to stay with their infirm mother)

Despite his views on women, Esteban has nothing but respect for the most unconventional woman he knows. What is her name and what has her ambition lead her to?

Tránsito Soto whose ambition has made her into a succesfull woman

Give examples of how Esteban treats women like property.

raping female peasant women without guilt, paying female workers less than men, expecting his female relatives to obey his orders without question

What does he frown upon that Nívea does and what does he forbid Clara from doing?

fighting for the right to vote, teach the hacienda’s workers about women’s rights

Clara continually defies her husband’s expectations and essentially lives her life as she wants to. What does she use his house for?

holing spiritualist sessions, minister the poor

How does Blanca defy her father?

taking Pedro Tercero for her lover, eventhough she gives into Esteban by marring Jean de Satigny (shows conflicting roles of power)

By the time his granddaughter grows up,” Esteban had finally come to accept…?

that not all women were complete idiots’’, and agrees that Alba “could enter one of the great professions and make her living like a man.”