In The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende, Marxism is an important theme and the political ideology held by many characters. These same characters tend to exhibit traits that correlate with the Buddhist belief system by reflecting aspects of Gautama Buddha's life in their own. The characters accept the “Four Truths” – notably that suffering is an ingrained part of existence – and that there is an escape from suffering. This shows that Marxism and Buddhism share common elements; the relationship between the two is reflected by the characters following Marxist doctrine within The House of Spirits. Characters from the aforementioned doctrine tend to have life experiences similar to those of Gautama Buddha. One of these characters is Jamie, he struggles throughout the story with the contrast between his Marxist views and his upper class family. This ultimately leads him to abandon his father's name "he wanted to change his last name...the poor...didn't trust him anymore..." (Allende 228). This is reminiscent of Siddhartha Gautama who was born a prince but, seeing human suffering, abandoned his family to lead an acetic lifestyle in the hope of ending the suffering. Another character decidedly similar to Gautama Buddha is Alba. When she was born, her grandmother predicted a happy life for her, and she spent her childhood raised in relative isolation in the big house. “...She will be lucky and she will be happy…” ...they have made no effort to prepare the child for life” (Allende 262-7). This is similar to another excerpt from Siddhartha's life, where a soothsayer predicted that he would either be a great king or a...... middle of paper ....... To this end, Allende has shown that Miguel still exhibits traits of a Buddhist despite his extremist views. During The Spirits, Allende develops Marxist characters with Buddhist tendencies, which allows him to highlight the parallels between these two doctrines, notably through Alba's experiences during her detention or Jamie's emancipation from his father. To quote Father José Dulce Maria's reference “...the Holy Church is on the right, but Jesus Christ was always on the left” (Allende 154), based on the aforementioned evidence, one can see that this statement is probably true for Gautama Buddha. Works Cited Allende, Isabel. The House of Spirits. New York: Cadran, 2005. Print.