There are numerous examples of the supernatural in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. This study will consider five such supernatural occurrences and will examine the effect that such an otherworldly tendency on the part of the characters and the author has on the overall meaning and impact of the novel. The South American novel has a tradition of magical realism, and Allende's novel is in that tradition. Like other magical realist authors, Allende uses the supernatural event---almost always intimately related to a character in the book---as a bridge between the everyday world and the world of spirits. The supernatural serves as a connector between the old and the new, the common and the strange, the known and the unknown. It gives both meaning and mystery to the lives of the people in the novel. The people in the novel are generally poor, generally religious, and generally at the mercy of a social, political and economic system which abuses and exploits them. The supernatural gives them the belief that there is something special about their lives which gives them hope in both this world and the next.
The supernatural in this novel also serves as the source of much humor, both ironic and blatant. It starkly sets itself against the mundane, especially when the people witnessing it are concerned with seemingly petty matters in the face of such strange mystery. In other words, the supernatural is in part seen as a part of life, but it is also seen as something which could bring great disruption if not handled carefully.
Clara is at the heart of most of the supernatural in the novel. Her family sees her magical powers as simply "an attribute" (Allende 7). The family is at first more concerned with the negative public reaction such supernatural powers might bring to the family: "The other children . . . in case of visitors . . . would reach out and stop whatever might be moving on the table before the guests noticed" (Alle...