Isabel Allende's "The Infinite Plan"
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines "infinite" as "subject to no limitation or external determination." "Plan" is, on the other hand, defined as "a method for achieving something." Thus, Allende's title immediately leads the reader to the inherent contradictions Gregory Reeves' will face during his life. The novel illustrates the map of Gregory's life as determined by the moral lessons he learns throughout. As the title suggests, the plan of Gregory's life is shaped by a series of events that demonstrate the infinite possibilities of human nature. Simultaneously, however, it explores the ways in which our infinite possibilities can be limited by our human associations.
Norma Helsper argues the family serves as a powerful symbol in Western society (50). Helsper notes that Allende is familiar with the significance of the family in Western society; however, she argues Allende is also familiar with the "double identity" of the family (50). For example, Helsper argues in The House of Spirits Allende debunked the traditional family as symbol by showing it to be a respectable fatade that hid the truth of rape, adultery, battering, and domination (50). Similarly, in The Infinite Plan, Allende uses the double identity of the family and its internal contradictions to demonstrate Gregory's influences and growth.
Allende's story of Gregory's life in The Infinite Plan begins with his earliest memory of infinity encircled in his earliest memory of his father:
At other times in his life, when confronted by the world's surprises, Gregory Reeves felt that wonder, that sensation of belonging to a splendid place where everything is possible and where each thing, from the most sublime to the most horrendous, has a reason for being, where nothing happens by chance and nothing is without purpose" (Allende 6).
But in the midst of Gregory' first memory of infinity is the memory of his fath...