Severo and Nívea del Valle
The House of Spirits family tree starts with a political family in an unnamed country that readers recognise as Chile.1 Severo del Valle is a Liberal politician, and his wife Nívea bears fifteen children and later campaigns for the rights of women.21 The chart draws only the two daughters who matter to the story.
The eldest is Rosa the Beautiful. She dies in the first chapter after drinking poisoned brandy that was meant for her father, and her fiancé, Esteban Trueba, loses her before the wedding.31 The youngest is Clara, a child who foresees the future and moves objects without touching them. After she watches the autopsy of her sister she does not speak for nine years.1
Nívea’s brother, Uncle Marcos, is dead when the novel opens, and his body arrives at the house in the first pages.2 He taught Clara about the supernatural, and he stays in the text rather than on the chart.3 Severo and Nívea later die together in a car accident.1
Esteban Trueba, Clara and their descendants
Esteban Trueba is the son of Doña Ester, who is crippled by arthritis, and the brother of Férula, who nurses her.3 He worked in the mines to win Rosa, and after her death he rebuilds the ruined estate of Tres Marías into a model hacienda.1 When Clara speaks again, it is to say that she will marry him.
Clara and Esteban have three children. Blanca comes first, then the twins Jaime and Nicolás.2 Férula lives with the couple and loves Clara until Esteban finds the two women in bed together and throws his sister out. She curses him as she goes, and her ghost later visits Clara to say goodbye.3
Blanca grows up loving Pedro Tercero García, the son of the estate’s foreman. When the affair is found out, Esteban forces her to marry Count Jean de Satigny, a Frenchman, and the child she carries, Alba, is raised under the Count’s name although Pedro Tercero is her father.12 Blanca leaves the Count after she finds his photographs.3
The twins take different paths. Jaime becomes a doctor for the poor, and Nicolás tries one cause after another until his father sends him abroad.3 Both love Amanda, the sister of Miguel, and Jaime performs an abortion for her when she is pregnant by Nicolás.1 Alba later falls in love with Miguel, a revolutionary.
The Garcías on the House of Spirits family tree
Three generations of Pedros live on the estate. Old Pedro García is the eldest, known for his healing, Pedro Segundo is his son and Esteban’s foreman, and Pedro Tercero is the foreman’s son.23
The darkest branch of this House of Spirits family tree begins with a crime. Esteban rapes Pancha García when she is fifteen, and she bears his son, whom he never acknowledges.1 The grandson of that union is Esteban García, who grows up resenting the family and becomes a colonel of the regime after the coup.3
The references disagree about two links of this branch. Wikipedia calls Pancha the sister of Pedro Segundo and calls Esteban García the son of Esteban Trueba, while GradeSaver calls Pancha his niece and both GradeSaver and LitCharts make the colonel a grandson.132 The chart follows the grandson reading, with one unnamed son between Pancha and the colonel, because the colonel’s age in the last chapters fits a grandson.
Names that repeat across the generations
Readers lose their place on a House of Spirits family tree because its names repeat. The three women of the del Valle and Trueba line are Clara, Blanca and Alba, three words for clear, white and dawn light, and the chart sets them in a straight line down from Nívea so that the pattern is visible.
There are two Estebans, one at the head of the Trueba family and one, a generation lower, at the end of the García line. The chart writes the colonel’s full name every time and gives him the grey of the military regime from the coup on. The Pedros are told apart by the words Segundo and Tercero, which mean second and third.
The House of Spirits family tree chapter by chapter
Each card gives the changes to the House of Spirits family tree at the end of a group of chapters. Read each card after its chapters, since the later cards name deaths.
Chapters 1 to 3
Rosa, Tres Marías and Clara
Spoiler note. Rosa dies.
- Rosa dies of the poison meant for Severo, and Clara falls silent.
- Esteban builds up Tres Marías and rapes Pancha García.
- Clara breaks her silence to accept Esteban.
Chapters 4 to 6
Children and a curse
Spoiler note. Férula is driven out.
- Blanca, Jaime and Nicolás are born.
- Esteban throws Férula out, and she curses him.
- Blanca and Pedro Tercero become lovers, and Esteban maims him.
Chapters 7 to 9
The Count and Alba
Spoiler note. Alba’s father is named.
- Esteban forces Blanca to marry Jean de Satigny.
- Alba is born and raised in the big house on the corner.
Chapters 10 to 12
Decline and an election
Spoiler note. Clara dies.
- Clara dies, and the big house falls into decline.
- Alba loves Miguel, and the Socialists win the election.
Chapters 13 and 14
The coup
Spoiler note. Jaime and Amanda die.
- Soldiers kill Jaime, and Amanda dies during the Terror.
- Esteban García imprisons and tortures Alba, and Tránsito Soto helps to free her.
Epilogue
The notebooks
Spoiler note. The ending is told in full.
- Esteban Trueba dies in Alba’s arms.
- Alba, pregnant, writes the story from Clara’s notebooks and Esteban’s memories.
How to read this House of Spirits family tree
On this House of Spirits family tree a square is a man and a circle is a woman. A double line is a marriage. The couple line between Esteban and Pancha is drawn as an assault, the genogram symbol for a child conceived by rape. Rosa and Esteban are joined by a dashed pink engagement line in the first chapters.
Each family wears its colour, with a letter at the corner of every member. From chapter 10 Jaime, Alba and Miguel also carry the orange mark of the Socialist side, and from the coup Esteban García carries the grey mark of the regime. The coloured lines carry words at both ends, so the line from Esteban Trueba to Pedro Tercero reads as a hunt in the middle of the novel and as an escape at the end, when Esteban helps the couple leave for Canada.23
To draw a House of Spirits family tree of your own, open this chart in the editor, or start a new chart from the story charts. The symbols are set out in the genogram symbols.
Questions about the House of Spirits family tree
How many generations does the House of Spirits family tree cover
Four in the del Valle and Trueba line, from Severo and Nívea to Alba, and four in the García line, from Old Pedro to the colonel.2
Who is the father of Alba
Pedro Tercero García. Alba is raised as the daughter of Count Jean de Satigny.21
People and sources
A page of its own lists all 21 characters on the chart, each with a short note and the sources for it, and the four numbered sources this article cites. It also gives this page as a reference in the APA, MLA, Chicago and Harvard styles, ready to copy.