The Peasantry in Novels Fathers and Sons and The House of the Spirits - Essay Example

? Running Head: Peasantry is present in both novels, Fathers and Sons and The House of the Spirits. Explain the use of Peasants and their role in thesocial class The House of Spirits The House of Spirits traces the post-colonial social and political upheavals in Latin America. The role of peasants in Esabelle Allende’s novel is accentuated by the presence of the opposing class of landed aristocracy. Most of the characters, or the general population, in this novel belongs to one of these classes. The sharp contrast between the two strata of the society makes the novel quite engrossing. One of the main characters of the novel, Esteban Garcia, belongs to the family who represent the peasant class in the novel. The peasants, in this novel, can join the police force or the army and gain access to education and a higher class status. The antagonism between the two classes occurs due to the fact that the aristocrats own the lands while the peasants work on them. The discord between them intensifies when the upper class flourishes and the lower class fails to prosper. Several different approaches are represented towards the inequality. Esteban Garcia believes in the conventional view i.e. the peasants are a dignified class and should not strive to achieve the status of the higher class. They should be contented with whatever they have been provided with. On the other hand, another member of the same family, Pedro Tercero Garcia, represents the revolutionary peasants who want to change their situation. The peasants are also supported by the Trueba women. The novel starts and ends with a narration that refers directly to Clara and her use of journals. The words used by the narrator were written by Isabel Allende. Special attention has been given to the various ways in which each woman learn how to write. Clara and Alba first get a hang at writing and then learn how to make use of that writing. Writing testifies the events that they had witnessed on both personal and political level. The primary purpose of such a testimony being to broadcast these events to a wider audience so that they are able to draw lessons and learn from the events. At the personal level, Alba and her relatives were able to put together their family progeny and history on the basis of Clara's writings. Alba talks about military rule, the military regime etc at the political levels. Alba's writings reflect the events that place at Isabel's house in Chile during her life. Fate keeps playing its game in The House of the Spirits. The events had been thematized in Clara's clairvoyance that helped her understand the fate of people and to predict future. The plot has been structured such that it revolves around the encounters of the members of the del Valle-Trueba family and the Garcia family with each other. most of the young couples in the novels met each other when they were young and ultimately realized that they are meant for each other years later. The novel takes a slow and steady pace throughout the course of its story depiction and narration. Love returned and found its way through a rare combination of chance and design. The same was the case with most other relations in the novel including friendships and debts. Most turning points in the show were a matter of chance and the game of destiny. They did not follow a steady course of actions. The actions took place by chance. every character's fate in the novel was a culmination of his actions, whether great and small. This is analogous to the fate of country being determined by the roles played by forces of nature. (rags) .Fathers and Sons Ivan Turgenev novel, Fathers and Sons, is realistically set in a Russian countryside where Turgenev captures the situation of some families during the social upheaval in Russian history. Tsar Alexander II officially emancipated the serfs in 1861 after a movement which had been growing since 1859. Nikolai Petrovic forfeits his power and frees the serfs but he faces problems in maintaining order over them now. The Russian upheaval results in the renouncement of the values of the elders by the younger generation. A much larger social change is represented by the image of peasants in the novel. The emancipation of the serfs who previously worked on private estates meant that that the peasants no longer feared their masters or respected them. An example is of a peasant Foma, "a farm-hand who kept slinking off and was quite unmanageable" (5.74) and is also known as “a regular Aesop.” Foma had begun to ignore his responsibilities. This was quite an expected behavior of peasants who had been serving their masters for generations and had no idea how to handle the freedom that was thrust upon them. The peasants who were entirely dependent on selected class of owners could now become independent land-owners in free market economy. Although peasantry is not a major theme of the novel, it shows itself in subtle ways and has an enormously affects the way the characters think and behave. For instance, when Pavel becomes furious at Bazarov’s arrogance, his anger is partially due to the frustration he is going through while managing the peasants at Maryino. The setting of the novel Fathers and Sons is Russian countryside in particular which, perhaps, makes peasantry an indirect theme of the novel. The contrast between the rural and urban lives in Russia is demonstrated when Bazarov and Arkady return to countryside after being exposed to city life in St Petersburg. The fast-paced city life changes their perception of their country life which strikes them as slow-moving and backward. As the time goes on, Arkady develops sympathy for his father while Bazarov is bent upon augmenting the generation gap by making himself incomprehensible to his elders. (Turgenev) An interesting aspect of this novel is that the countryside hints at the peasantry along with the older generation while the younger generation refers to the city life. Though the main theme of the novel is disparity between generations and ideologies, the contrast between the social classes is readily observed in the difference in living conditions, ideologies and opportunities. Comparison The class struggle is one of the major themes of the novel which brings out the fact that the author supports the view of the peasants. In this novel, the peasants are on a much dignified position than they are in Turgenev’s Father and Sons. They have a certain degree of respectable freedom and are free to think and make choices. On the other hand, the Russian peasants were previously bound but now they have the entire freedom to themselves and they misuse it as well. Works Cited Rags, Book. The House of Spirits. 5 Jan 2010 . Turgenev, Ivan. Fathers and Sons. 5 Jan 2010 . Read More