A feminist analysis of the narrative structure of Isabel Allende's The Infinite Plan

This thesis is divided into three main chapters. Chapter II concerns the narrative presences within the novel that inform the text and make it feminist. Narrative presences include the characters and factors that directly affect the narration. In The Infinite Plan, these include a female omniscient narrator; the feminist reality of the twentieth century; the paratext; and Reeves' confessions to his psychiatrist and narrator. Chapter III analyzes the role of the omniscient female narrator, who is the most powerful figure in the novel. As the lover of Reeves, she has a vested interest in his well-being, but she is more than just a sympathetic character. She controls the text: she fictionalizes his past based on his confessions and allows him only limited space to voice his own story. Ultimately, she determines when he has fully recovered and when he can confidently reveal that new-found health to the reader. She controls the novels and guides Reeves' healing. Chapter IV examines Reeves' narrations, which expose him as a stereotypical male who struggles to escape the masculine realm of lust, power, and destruction. With the assistance of his lover and his psycliiatrist, he ultimately recognizes that in order to heal from his painful life, he must surrender to the feminine realm of emotion, love and compassion.