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Dream House essay example
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Dream house essayTopic:
Discuss the concept of “truth” in the novel, The Dream House, by Craig Higginson. Consider the
concept of individual and conflicting truths and whether harmony was reached at the end of the
novel. Refer to two characters.
In the novel, The Dream House by Craig Higginson, the truth is a concept that is very prevalent but
also very uncertain. Throughout the novel, there are conflicting truths and these majorly affect the
characters of Patricia and Looksmart. How these truths are told and what exactly they are is the
deciding factor on whether harmony is reached at the end or not.
Looksmart comes back to Dwaleni farm in order to tell Patricia, what he sees as, the truth and wants
Patricia “to be sorry”. His journey back was fueled by hatred but he is in fact fragile and uncertain of
his decision. He tells Patricia what he recalls about the day Grace died and they immediately have
their discrepancies. Looksmart reveals that he loved Grace and planned to marry her. He believes
that Richard raped her, and, when Beauty caught him, set the dog on Grace – resulting in her death.
This knowledge and the inability he had at the time to do anything or stand up for Grace plagues
Looksmart with guilt and anger. He confronts Patricia about delaying taking Grace to the hospital by
treating her as “less than human” and not wanting Grace’s blood on her new car seats. He “saw it as
murder”.
For Looksmart’s entire adulthood, the image of Grace being attacked by the dog, the “double
creature” haunts him. He is almost frozen in that moment and cannot move on. When he returns to
the farm he feels as if “everything is exactly as he left it” and that he “never really left”. He has been
unable to form proper relationships with his wife and children as he feels like he is “missing an
organ” due to the hole that Grace left. The result of this is that Looksmart has developed “his own
story” of what really happened.
Patricia is a cynical character who believes that “backward glances only crick the neck”. Her memory
of what happened to Grace is hazy and she simply thinks that the girl “provoked the dog” and was
killed. She saw Looksmart as ungrateful for disappearing, never truly knowing the hurt that he was
feeling or his reasons. Patricia’s view on the “truth” is that it “never amounts to much in the end”
and this is why her journey of claiming responsibility and ultimately freedom requires her to know
the full and honest truth.
Beauty knows the real story, and she tells Patricia this near the end of the novel. She knows that
Grace was actually sleeping with Richard for money and had been doing so for quite some time.
Grace was also pregnant with Richard’s child and wanted to keep it, this being the real reason that
he set the dog on her. While this is the truth, whether it should be told to everyone is questionable,
and is essentially up to Beauty. She decides to open Patricia’s eyes, but leave Looksmart in the dark.
Beauty, who “has knowledge in her eyes, burning like a fire” knows that she cannot tell Looksmart
the truth. “He is like a boy in his heart” and if he found out that the woman he loved was never
raped, but also never wanted to marry him, it would destroy him. Looksmart has harbored his guilt
and hatred for far too long, and by knowing the full truth, Looksmart would not be able to move on.
By the end of the novel, he has come to peace with grace’s death. While she will always hold a place
in his heart, he can now continue on with his life. This is why Beauty lets him leave the farm with
“gaps” in him and with what he “claims as the truth”.
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