Dear people who need to realize that family is very important, February 23, 2017
In my Honors Comp and Lit class I was forced to read The House of the Spirits. I was not looking forward to it at all, and once I opened it my little amount of enthusiasm was crushed even more, it was very word heavy and not very interesting. Once I got into it though, I started to relate to it and see people I know in the characters of the book. I ended up really liking the book in the end because of how I saw my own father in Esteban Trueba (the main father figure). The House of the Spirits was a book about a few generations of a family and all of their successes, struggles, and everything everyone went through over 80 or so years. It went into topics like the treatment of women, political power, social classes, and the importance of family
In The House of the Spirits there was a huge issue with the importance of family. Esteban Trueba was an angry man and didn’t care about a single other person until his 90’s when his granddaughter came around. The author showed the effect of not caring for your family and how they will grow up to resent you. Out of his whole family, only one person liked him. All of his family either hated him and just dealt with it, or they left. Esteban regrets all of this immensely at the end of his life.
My father and I do not get along very well. For example, just this morning he yelled at me for (yes this is real) having more than one alarm clock go off. I chose this because I feel like my father will grow up to be a less violent Esteban Trueba. I fear I will grow to resent my dad and then I won’t talk to him as soon as I don’t have to. I don’t want it truly but on the other hand what’s the point of talking to a man that just nods his head and mummers every time you attempt to talk to him and never actually tries to strike up a conversation naturally unless to my mom tells him to.
I’m writing this to the people who believe that family doesn’t have to be blood and that blood isn’t always family. For example, there was a man who had a dying neighbor, the man and the lady were basically family already. So the man decided to have her move in with her and he took care of her and her cat. They did everything together and were a very happy couple of friends. If they hadn’t been neighbors, they probably wouldn’t have met and their lives would be very different and much less satisfying. This story proves my point that family isn’t always in your bloodline.
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My purpose of this letter is to bring light to this issue, I want parents to reflect on how they are to their kids. Sure they can provide for them financially and give them food and a place to sleep. But if they don’t treat them right then they won’t appreciate everything they do and that’s not fair to either party. In The House of the Spirits, Esteban Trueba was a very rich man for most of his life but the people he wanted to be loved by thought very lowly of him because of how he treated them. Esteban did give them everything they wanted but, he treated them like servants and if they disagreed with him they were the devil basically.
This book will make you want to go out and hangout with your grandpa. I feel like I’m missing a connection with some family members and I will regret not restoring them. This book made me feel much more inclined to talk to my family. Just like Esteban and Clara this book made me realize how important having a good connection to your family actually is.
