House of spirits- Barrabas

he magical-realist author uses Barrabas to connect nature with the supernatural, through his looks and actions. The fact that Barrabas was part of Uncle Marcos’s luggage created a mystical atmosphere about him. His descriptions contributed to the fact that he was surreal, where his tail "grew to be as long as a golf club and developed a life all its own that led to lamps and china being swept from tabletops" (pg 31-32). This makes the reader aware of his exaggerated looks that make Barrabas look like he is from a fairytale. The fact that he was of "unknown pedigree" and "had nothing in common with the other stray dogs much less with the thoroughbred racers that assorted families of the aristocracy were raising" (pg 32) made his character magical. Even though he had "crocodile claws "and "sharp little teeth" (pg 32) he behaved like a "frolicsome kitten" (pg 32). Due to Barrabas’s fast growth "some people expected him to sprout wings and horns and acquire the sulphuric breath of a dragon" (pg 33). This added in making Barrabas’s character to be supernatural and "mythological"(pg 33). Barrabas symbolized Clara’s childhood where he was her only friend. He died on the day of Clara’s engagement symbolising the end of her childhood. The author uses grotesque imagery to describe his death where he was "bleeding to death like an ox, his long colt legs trembling, his muzzle dripping with threads of blood, his eyes clouded in agony;dragging one paw after the other he traced to the zigzag path of a wounded dinosaur"(pg 112). Allende compares his bleeding to an ox to emphasize on the amount of blood coming out of him. The author creates pauses in the sentence using commas to give time to the reader to ponder on the different aspects of Barrabas’s agony. Later on in the novel Alba and Esteban Trueba put the rug which was made from Barrabas’s skin in the big house in the corner such that they could see his eyes this made Barrabas part of the supernatural.