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During the 1970s, many countries in South America endured political upheaval and undeclared civil war as military dictatorships gained control of the government. This was a period of rapid political change marked by violence and oppression. Unelected military regimes seized power, justifying their actions within a Cold War context as efforts to root out communist or Marxist regimes. Following the restoration of democracy, investigations documented the murder or “disappearance” of thousands of citizens of these countries.
Isabel Allende was raised in an affluent Chilean diplomatic family. Her uncle, Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist president in the Western Hemisphere, died on September 11, 1973, during the violent coup d’état that gave General Augusto Pinochet control of the country from 1973 until 1990. The author was 31 years old at the time and fled to exile in Venezuela with her family. Her family’s subsequent escape and exile from Chile had a profound influence on Allende, and themes of political violence, social upheaval, and people who are “disappeared” by government regimes appear frequently in her work.
In “Two Words,” Allende draws upon her personal experience, setting the narrative during a time of political instability with a central character who leads a revolutionary group and wants to be president. The Colonel’s pattern of violence and oppression mirrors that of many countries in South America in the 1970s. However, he becomes weary of the violence and terror he provokes—aspiring political leaders’ behaviors with which Allende was personally familiar—and seeks a peaceful campaign to win the love and respect of the populace in the hopes of winning a legitimate presidency. This development proposes an alternative methodology wherein civil strife ends through democratic reform.
In the 1960s and 1970s, literature from Latin America achieved increasing recognition on the world stage through increased translation and attention by global publishers. This phenomenon is known as the “boom.” Writers such as Gabriel García Márquez of Colombia, Carlos Fuentes of Mexico, and Mario Vargas Llosa of Peru received critical acclaim, selling millions of copies of their work to a wide audience around the globe. Their impact on literature is so widely recognized that both García Márquez and Vargas Llosa won the Nobel Prize for Literature later in their careers. The boom is associated with male authors.
The introduction of the literary device known as “magical realism” became known as a distinctive feature of boom literature, although this device is not unique to the region. Magical realism is a narrative technique in which elements of fantasy or the supernatural and extraordinary are woven into an otherwise realistic story and presented as though they are as real as its nonmagical elements. Boom authors are also known for literary experimentation; as their authors play with structure, their novels often resist chronological time and have multiple and ambiguous narrators. They frequently explore themes of loneliness and isolation.
Allende belongs to the “post-boom” generation of Latin American writers who began publishing in the 1980s and 1990s. Their works often retain magic realist elements but are less experimental in style than those of the boom writers. After her first novel, the international bestseller The House of the Spirits (1982), Allende became the best-known female author from Latin America since the 1945 Nobel Prize Winner, Gabriela Mistral. Other authors of this generation include Luisa Valenzuela, Rosario Ferré, and Antonio Skármeta.
In “Two Words,” originally published in 1989, Allende presents elements of mystery and magic set against the backdrop of the real world, but with a clear, mostly linear writing style and a single omniscient narrator. She incorporates elements of fantasy into the narrative with secret words that have magical properties. These magical words are never revealed to the reader, lending an additional layer of mystery to the narrative. The storyteller protagonist's words serve many functions. They can enhance dreams, instill hope, mesmerize, and lift from melancholy. They can also inspire optimism and hope and sway the opinions of the masses. These words also have a pragmatic purpose grounded in reality. They bring news and serve as a source of entertainment, advice, and help, helping ease the loneliness of both Belisa Crepusculario and the Colonel.
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By Isabel Allende