SOURCE: "Mask and Mirror: Isabel Allende's Mechanism for Justice in The House of the Spirits," in Postcolonial Literature and the Biblical Call for Justice, University Press of Mississippi, 1994, pp. 74-90.

Kovach is an American educator and critic who has written works on such subjects as ethnic American literature and literary theory. In the following essay, she examines the ways in which Allende propagates a "prophetic vision of female integrity and justice" in The House of the Spirits, focusing on the role of memories in the book and Allende's narrative strategies.

       No one brings suit justly,
         no one goes to law honestly;
       They rely on empty pleas, they speak lies,
         conceiving mischief and begetting iniquity.
 
                                      (Isa. 59:4)

The prophet Isaiah thus envisions how the lack of truth, righteousness, and integrity in relationships brings the divisiveness of sin into the world. Injustice splinters the wholeness of creation, causing a disintegration of...