Redemption and Esteban Trueba

This is my first post about a book and I'm actually a bit nervous to write it. It's silly but it kind of feels strange to write about a book, especially a book that I don't have in front of me, in this informal, electronic kind of space. I'm going to keep it pretty loose and free form.

I've been reading a lot recently and the book that I got the most emotionally invested in was Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits. If pressed, and if I had the book in front of me, there are tons of different things that I could write about it but the one idea that provoked the most thought for me, was whether or not Esteban Trueba found redemption.

I don't think that there's always a clear distinction between being redeemable and irredeemable and different people probably have different and valid opinions on whether or not a character can find redemption.

What makes one irredeemable; that no amount of good can make up for the bad? Is there a tipping point when it comes to redemption, is there some point when your good deeds outweigh your bad ones, that when reached brings you redemption? Or, is at the moment that you realize that you have done a lot that you need to make up for and you start doing good that you have been redeemed? Do you need to continue to do good for as long as you can once you make that realization?

Is it what, and how much good you do, or is it the fact that your intentions have changed that makes you redeemable?

Various thoughts and spoilers for those who haven't read the book after the jump.

Towards the end of the book Esteban did help his daughter Blanca and granddaughter Alba, more or less saving their lives. However, it was only after he caused them to suffer directly and indirectly. He was one of the people responsible, if not the person most responsible, for putting their lives in danger in the first place. He helped bring about the coup which led to the capture, rape, and torture of Alba. The same would have happened to Blanca had she been caught.

He also fathered the father of the man who tortured and raped Alba once she was captured, Esteban Garcia. By not being involved in the lives of the child he fathered and through the way he treated the people at Tres Marias, the village where he had his country house, he helped to create an environment where this unrecognized grandson, Garcia, became the monster he devolved into.

In addition to the pain he caused his children and grandchildren Esteban Trueba raped pretty much every woman in Tres Marias. The only thing that kept his character in murky territory, as opposed to black and white evil, was how much he loved his granddaughter, and perhaps his biggest step towards possible redemption was using what was left of his connections to save her.

Those connections, however, were virtually nonexistent when it came to issues of real power in the government and he resorts to going to a loyal friend and brothel owner in order to save Alba. Would he have even helped Blanca or Alba if he had not been old, feeble, and no longer influential politically? Does that matter?

He was always going to reach a point where he'd no longer be powerful physically as well as politically, living as long as he did. Does the inevitability of the circumstances that softened him take away from the goodness of the choices he made?

If redemption occurs at the moment that you decide to start atoning for the things you've done wrong then it is possible that Esteban Trueba found redemption. However if you need to fully counterbalance everything that you've done wrong in order to be redeemed than Trueba fell far short.

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Early Morning Outrage Pt. 2

Ok, I know she would dismiss me as one of those do-nothing bloggers, but Whoopi Goldberg seriously needs to stop using, "But she didn't go to the police," as a criticism of Mel Gibson's significant other. SHE DID GO TO THE POLICE. She got a restraining order before the tapes were released. (Also, I don't know that any woman should be criticized for not going to the police in an abuse case, but it's factually wrong to say she didn't).

Whoopi also needs to stop giving the benefit of the doubt to Mel as to the veracity of the tapes if she isn't also going to give it to Oksana as to whether she leaked them. Whoopi assumes that Oksana is the one who leaked the tapes without any proof. Maybe she did leak the tapes but it's wrong to hold people to different burdens of proof. It's not surprising that Oksana (the side-piece, as Whoopi calls her) is held to higher burden of proof than Mel.

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