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Society’s Culpability and Judgement in Isabel Allende’s “If You Touched My Heart”
Isabel Allende’s “If You Touched My Heart” weaves together a corrupt gang-member-turned-politician, a naïve fifteen-year-old girl, and a web of desire, secrecy, guilt, and neglect that entangles the entire town into a haunting portrait of culpability, morality, neglect, and judgement. When Amadeo Peralta meets the young, “simple” (520) Hortensia, the two immediately engage in a torrid affair that results in Hortensia’s imprisonment for almost fifty years. When the townspeople finally rescue her from the cellar where Peralta held her, they quickly give her ‘justice’ by convicting Amadeo Peralta to life imprisonment. By only looking at the surface, one might conclude that Allende’s story contains a straightforward message about an innocent, neglected victim rescued from an insatiable criminal and delivered to righteousness. At the end of the narrative, however, the author makes it clear that the repercussions of Hortensia’s lengthy mistreatment are far from straightforward. The author’s harsh judgement of the community outside of Hortensia and Peralta’s relationship forces Allende’s readers to reassess the role of society in moderating discomfiting relationships.
A surface-level examination of “If You Touched My Heart” indicates that Amadeo Peralta is undoubtedly the guilty villain of the story. Within the first two pages, Allende introduces Hortensia and Peralta’s relationship: how Peralta seduced the fifteen-year-old Hortensia in her village, how she followed him to his home a week later, and how she was rescued from the cellar Peralta had “entombed” her in for forty-seven years (520). When confronted about his abysmal treatment of Hortensia, Peralta refuses to explain his actions simply because he feels that his power and authority shield him from having to do so. Instead, he offers the casual phrase, “‘Because I felt like it,’” (520) which does little to endear him to the reporters asking the question or the readers of the story. Such a blatantly neglectful response towards Hortensia’s humanity immediately paints Amadeo Peralta as the guilty character.
Peralta undoubtedly bears legal culpability for his crime, but the ultimate rationale for his sentencing within the courts fails to provide true justice for Hortensia as the victim. Allende informs the reader that “Peralta’s numerous enemies finally gathered courage to launch an attack . . . [and] fell upon him with the full fury of the law” (525). Said fury ends with Peralta sentenced to life in prison for his many “crooked dealings” and “abuses” (524-525). While this judgement might appear to provide justice for Hortensia, Allende presents the unsettling idea that the court’s decision had little to do with Peralta’s horrific mistreatment of Hortensia. The specific crimes perpetuated against Hortensia (kidnapping and imprisonment at the very least) remain conspicuously unmentioned; instead, the authorities focus on Peralta’s general “abuses” during his rise to power (525). In fact, Allende makes it abundantly clear that the case brought against Amadeo Peralta was purely due to his enemies “Taking advantage of the public furore fanned by the press” after the discovery of Hortensia rather than due to any actual concern for justice specifically for Hortensia (525). The case against Peralta for his abuse of Hortensia seems obvious: Hortensia survived and can testify to her treatment over the years (although her willingness to testify remains a question), authorities know the exact location of the cellar in which she was imprisoned, numerous townspeople were present when Hortensia was finally released from the cellar, and the ‘caretaker’ Peralta hired to keep Hortensia alive was also arrested (522). And yet, the exact charges brought against Amadeo Peralta remain frustratingly ambiguous, and the reader must unsettlingly conclude that the authorities care for Hortensia’s abuse only as a cover to remove Amadeo Peralta from power. While it is true that Peralta should be brought to justice for all crimes that he committed, even those outside of the shocking crime that occupies the plot of “If You Touched My Heart,” Allende makes it clear that the courts judged Peralta for his other crimes while only using his abuse of Hortensia as a crutch to sway public opinion.
Hortensia’s insistence on love as the foundation for her relationship with Peralta adds a further layer of complexity to the question of culpability and justice. When she is first “rescued by the neighbors,” Hortensia stubbornly insists that Peralta “‘loves me; he has always loved me’” (521). Such a statement could be easily brushed off as a symptom of Stockholm Syndrome developed over her years of confinement with only the company of Peralta and his hired helper. And yet, Hortensia shows concrete signs of her belief in this statement from the very beginning of their relationship. After their first encounter, “she suddenly appeared at [Peralta’s] house” and “planted herself before him” refusing to leave (520-521). If Hortensia had not genuinely believed in Peralta’s sincere feelings towards her, why would she have traveled over one hundred kilometers to find him (520)? Why would she have insisted on staying with him, even when he hides her in a cellar without basic comforts like a window or an actual bed?
The uncomfortable answer to these questions remains that, as unnatural as the reader might judge her situation, Hortensia views her relationship with Peralta as consensual and, therefore, natural. Her consent negates the judgment of Peralta as culpable and paints her relationship with Peralta as fulfilling for both parties, albeit discomfiting for the reader and society. The reader sees this when, rather than leave after Peralta confines her to the cellar, Hortensia views his continued visitations as further indicators of his passion for her. Allende supports this view by noting that Hortensia was “The only woman [Peralta] could not entirely discard,” a marked contrast from the multitude of other women that he engaged with romantically or sexually over the years (521). Hortensia found contentment in her situation as evidenced in her apathy regarding the world outside of the bubble that Peralta created for her through the solitude of the cellar (523). This contentment even leads Hortensia to attempt to return to the cellar after her emancipation and to refuse to leave Peralta alone while he serves his life sentence in prison: the story ends with her playing music, albeit badly, outside his prison cell (525-526). Hortensia’s actions consistently provide Peralta with consent and allow for the argument that Hortensia is complicit in her ‘kidnapping’ and ‘imprisonment.’ Even more disturbing is the revelation that this complicity negates any culpability that the reader may have placed upon Peralta.
Even if Hortensia’s consent somehow alleviates Peralta’s culpability, a crime has clearly occurred. Hortensia’s consent to engage in this discomfiting relationship does not negate the fact that she still deserves a certain amount of human dignity. If Peralta is unable or unwilling to provide this level of treatment, it is the responsibility of the society surrounding them to remedy Hortensia’s situation. Allende reveals that rumors about Peralta’s dubious operations, including his inhumane treatment of Hortensia, abounded among the townspeople:
Behind his back, people whispered about his victims, about how many he had ruined or caused to disappear, about bribes to authorities; there was talk that he had made half his fortune from smuggling, but no one was disposed to seek proof of his transgressions. It was also rumoured that Peralta kept a woman prisoner in a cellar. That aspect of his black deeds was repeated with more conviction even than stories of his crooked dealings; in fact, many people knew about it, and with time it became an open secret. (524)
Peralta is clearly a powerful and dangerous man making it logical that ordinary townspeople would wish to avoid rousing his ire by digging too deeply into his “crooked dealings” (524). And yet, a rumor about a human being ostensibly held against their will that spreads so rampantly as to become “an open secret” (524) creates a moral obligation for the community to investigate further. While it is easy enough for a powerful man to cover up bribes and smuggling, imprisoning a person remains far more complicated to keep quiet.
Rather than investigate this “open secret” (524) of which everyone in the town seems aware, the community chooses to treat the story as just another rumor contributing to Peralta’s godfather enigma. This decision implicates the townspeople in not only the legal crime of kidnapping and imprisoning Hortensia, but also the moral crime of neglecting Hortensia’s right to human dignity during the forty-seven years Peralta kept her in the cellar. In a way, Allende judges the townspeople even more harshly than she does Peralta by providing him with Hortensia’s consent in her confinement and loyalty after her release while casting the townspeople as an indifferent and neglectful audience of her liberation (525). Although Peralta may have been the one to actively hold Hortensia as an arguably consensual captive, the townspeople are no less culpable for her mistreatment through their choice to willfully neglect her plight for almost half a century and their passiveness in her ultimate release.
Despite this moral guilt, it would be impossible to prove the townspeople’s legal culpability in a court of law. And so, the people of the town are allowed to “assuage their guilt for having ignored Hortensia for so many years” by rallying around her “to avenge and succour her” (525). To atone for their past neglect, the townspeople overwhelm Hortensia with ‘necessities’ such as money, clothing, medicine, and a bed in a homeless shelter (525). Yet this treatment does the opposite of providing justice for Hortensia’s situation: she attempts to return to the cellar for “several months” and only eventually becomes “resigned” to her situation as the town’s newest pity case (525). This resignation indicates that, while most people would judge the items supplied to Hortensia as ‘necessities,’ they actually do little to meet Hortensia’s real needs: companionship, protection, and what she at least deems to be love. Instead, “provid[ing] her a pension. . .gather[ing] tons of clothing and medicine she did not need. . . scraping the filth from her body, cutting her hair, and outfitting her from head to toe” allows the townspeople to assuage their moral culpability without providing Hortensia with the true justice and dignity of choosing her living situation (525).
While the townspeople, and perhaps the reader, judge Hortensia’s new life as an improvement from her experience in the cellar, Allende indicates that this new life does not reflect true justice for Hortensia. By casting her as an “ordinary old lady” viewed with pity and disgust on the streets, the townspeople have continued to degrade Hortensia (525-526). She no longer has the relationship with Peralta that she consented to, enjoyed over the years, and viewed as loving and natural. She has also been denied the justice of maintaining control over her life upon her release from the cellar. So, while the people of the town get to absolve their guilt in their own eyes, Hortensia remains without true justice at the end of the story.
Allende’s haunting tale examines the complexities of human relationships, especially relationships that defy society’s definition of normal. A situation that once seemed straightforward, the kidnapping and imprisonment of a naïve young woman by a power-hungry and corrupt politician, suddenly twists into confusing queries into the true meaning of guilt and justice through the complexities of societal neglect, culpability, and judgement. In “If You Touched My Heart,” Allende forces readers to confront their beliefs and morals and leaves them with a troubling thought: when a private relationship goes horribly awry, it is the moral responsibility of each member of society to step in and demand human dignity and true justice for the victim. When society neglects that role, everyone becomes morally guilty of the crimes committed.
Works Cited
Allende, Isabel. “If You Touched My Heart.” The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, edited by Chris Baldick, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 519-526.