3 ideas
In the novel, Eladi conceals that he fathered Maria, and the secret passes to children who do not know it exists. Maria and Ramon fall in love without knowing they are siblings. In this case the harm comes less from Eladi's original act than from the later choices his silence leaves uninformed.
Rendering a family through the eyes of its cooks, maids and gardeners as well as its masters shows who actually holds a household's continuity. Servants see the private acts the family hides from one another, and they outlast the owners' fortunes. The last witness to a dynasty is often its employee, not its heir.
The narrative is split into short chapters, each told from a different character's partial vantage, with years skipped between them. The reader has to assemble the whole from reflections that each show only a fragment. This mirrors how memory and family history actually survive, as disconnected pieces no single participant can see whole.