Inside Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits, Marxism is a significant theme and political ideology supported by many of the characters. These same characters tend to display traits related to the Buddhist belief system through reflecting aspects of Gautama Buddha's life within their own. The characters accept the "Four Truths" - specifically that suffering is an ingrained part of existence - and that there is an escape from suffering. Through this it is shown that Marxism and Buddhism share common elements; the relationship between the two is reflected by the characters who follow Marxist doctrine within the House of Spirits. The characters of the above doctrine have a propensity to have life experiences similar to Gautama Buddha. One such character is Jamie, who struggles throughout the story with the contrast between his Marxist views and his upper-class family. This eventually leads him to abandon his father's last name “he wanted to change his last name… the poor… no longer trusted him…” (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 finding an end to the suffering. Another character decidedly similar to Gautama Buddha is Alba. At birth her grandmother predicts that she will have a lucky life and spends her childhood growing up in relative isolation in the big house, "'...She will be lucky and she will be happy...'...they made no effort to prepare the child to life” (Allende 262-7). This is similar to another excerpt from the life of Siddhartha, where a soothsayer predicted that he would become a great king or a… middle of paper… To this end Allende demonstrated that Miguel still displays traits of a Buddhist despite his extremist views Throughout The of The Spirits Allende develops Marxist characters with Buddhist tendencies, through this he brought to light the parallels between these two doctrines, particularly through Alba's experiences during the his detention or Jamie's emancipation from his father. Taking Father José Dulce Maria as a reference “...the Holy Church is on the right, but Jesus Christ has always been on the left” (Allende 154), based on the evidence mentioned above one can see that this statement is probably true of Gautama Buddha. Works CitedAllende, Isabel. The House of Spirits. New York: Quadrant, 2005. Print.