The role of men in The house of the Spirits and in Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Essay Example

Truth be told in both of these novels, men do play important roles but the way women function and become the focus point is highly commendable on their part. The clear irony is that though the men feel that they are the decision makers, the women seem to always get their way. This is especially shown in “The House of the Spirits” where the novel is written by a woman. Isabel Allende, the author of “House of the Spirits” enumerates on the myth and magic in addition to the politics of her homeland especially in her portrayal of men as only accessories to the women’s’ lives, where men only exist because of the women.

However, In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” the women are honored or enjoy an honorable status, but they do not replace the men, and in this novel are still considered as housewives, and are trained to be so. The women acknowledge this fact because their only goal in life is marriage, which clearly shows that it was a sexist society. This point is clearly brought out in the following sentences. “The brothers were brought up to be men. The girls had been reared to get married.

They knew how to do screen embroidery, sew by machine, weave bone lace, wash and iron, make artificial flowers and fancy candy, and write engagement announcements.” (p30). The above sentences show how these women based or dedicated their whole life to their men and did not mind suffering as long as they were married. As a matter of fact these women exhibited their suffering, just to prove how committed they were. This can be seen in the following statement which says, - “Any man will be happy with them because they’ve been raised to suffer.

” This also goes to show, that love is rarely an important dimension to their marriage in the first place. On the other hand, the men in “Chronicle of a Death Foretold” however, although not often married through the strong bond of love, are extremely overprotective of their women, whether