Summary
Summary The dream house novel full notes
- Course
- English Home Language
- Institution
- 12th Grade
Character analysis, storyline, themes and quotes. The only document needed to prepare for tests and the IEB final exam. Very extensive.
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THE DREAM HOUSE (also read through notes written in book)The Title of the novel The Dreamhouse
Title: a desire which is close but unreachable
= a ‘dreamhouse’ is not necessarily confined to a physical space but can represent an ideal, to
which the characters yearn for, a fantasy that may never be attained.
Multi-layered: represents an ideal and an illusion. A fantasy that will never become a reality.
Each character yearns for their own version of the dreamhouse:
Patricia:
Patricia longs for a home filled with love and family (hopes to resurrect this by getting looksmart
to visit with his children), she hopes for warmth and laughter but this is a fantasy that will never
be materialised with Richard / John Ford. The dream house is
filled with family and love which never happened in Dwaleni.
She revives that dream when Looksmart reappears and asks him to visit her in Durban.
She imagine the house filled with laughter and the love she's always craved.
Looksmart:
Seeks to create dreamhouse by remodelling the farm.
As a boy the farm represented a place of privilege that he was always excluded from.
Despite his connection with Patricia, the racial segregation at the time meant they
could never truly be a family.
So he takes ownership of the farm and all it represents and plans to transform it into a place
that he can occupy.
By doing this, he hopes to subconsciously heal the pain of his past.
However, Patricia realises he is in fact just recreating the pain.
• Beauty:
Beauty has very simple desires
She dreams of owning a house of her own. A space that is entirely her domain.
She has been saving towards this dream and even requests a plot on which to build it.
Her dream house is a place where she does not have to serve or answer to anyone else.
However, as she leaves for Durban where she will continue to serve the Wiley’s theres not real
prospect of her dream emerging.
• Bheki:
The ideal of remaining with his family and being in the position to care
for them.
This dream house is offered to him by Looksmart.
• Richard:
Simply searching for a home in which he feels welcomed.
As his marriage soured, he spent most of his life living in exile on the farm.
He even quotes, “it was never my house, it was hers”
NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW: Third person AKA an attached third
person.
Perspective of or 5 main characters.
,Gives reader insight into internal emotions, acts and reactions of each character.
Each chapter is focalised by a different character omniscient narration.
Higginson uses dramatic irony gives the reader info that characters don’t have. This allows
readers to decipher problems and creates empathy.
Character analysis
Patricia:
Central female protagonist.
Defined by disappointment.
Selective amnesia
represents whites who benefitted from apartheid, dogs = police who surround and protect
Her dreams never materialised a happy home & marriage, filled with children.
After Rachel’s death her marriage soured she felt trapped and she became filled with
disappointment and resentment.
Years of bitterness and regret has made her unpleasant & not a very likeable character
intended to feel sympathy toward her as she is in clear emotional and physical pain.
When she leaves the farm she is aware that it symbolises her life with her husband lack
of fulfilment and mutual disdain.
As a result of a failed marriage and losing her daughter, Patricia is consumed with the
desire to connect emotionally and spiritually with another human she does this through her
relationship with Looksmart and John Ford both of which were unsuccessful.
Affairs of the heart:
Feeling justified by Richards affairs, P pursues one of her own with John Ford.
She was drawn to him because he was everything Richard was not she saw the potential for the
emotional connection she desired.
However, john could never give her this not close to the level he gave to his late wife, Anna.
Even in his death she feels fooled by him he hides behind wanting to protect her from his
death but she feels he denied her the opportunity to care for him & to feel extravagantly
(the root of her disappointment)
Rachels's death numbed her emotionally and she is seeking a way out of the deadened
state.
She yearns to reconnect with her emotions and live again.
Even in John's death he fails her he withholds himself from her.
She only sees Beauty as potential as an au-pair
The prodigal son:
Her surrogate son where she could place her maternal love.
His arrival = a rebirth for Patricia.
However, he was destined to be a disappointment for her.
As he grew older he became more aware of society and the social laws and began to ‘judge
her’.
Not knowing or understanding the trauma that Looksmart experienced from Grace’s
death, she considered his leaving ‘abandonment’.
Patricia really struggled with this felt as if all colour faded from the world.
She began to see him as ‘another dead child’ perhaps to protect herself from the
realisation that she meant less to him than he did to her.
Their relationship became another example of her investing herself and getting nothing in
return.
Clinging to hope:
, Despite the strings of disappointment and regret she still holds onto the hope that Looksmart
and his family will visit her in Durban.
This reveals a desire to revive a kind of family life with her ‘son’.
Looksmart: Phiwayinkosi
Unrequited love to grace
Suspicious over those who love him
Like Patricia, Looksmart’s life has been defined by disappointment and an apparent sense to
overcome a sense of ‘world weary’ numbness.
The disillusionment and rejection he experienced as a kid made him feel as though something
was missing & he spent a lot of time trying to fill that missing piece- first through his marriage
then by becoming a father.
He admits that he ‘has never been good at being loved’ because he is suspicious of those who
love him and actively tries to downplay or discredit their feelings.
He visits the farm to confront Patricia about Grace & his believed truth as well as try break
through the numbness he has acquired as an adult and try rediscover the hatred and rage he
had in his youth.
He has come to confront the complicated feelings he has for Patricia as a mother figure and is
determined to cut down any claims of affection that might remain, he tries to intimidate her and
frighten her.
A gradual humiliation:
• We start to see that Grace’s death is not the only cause of Looksmart’s pain. P’s betrayal has
cut even deeper.
• Growing up in a racist society he has taught himself that racial divides will always come in-
between him a Patricia seen in the way he was treated at school, constantly reminded that he
was not their equal.
• Even though P played a motherly role for LS he began to see the subtle ways in which the
prejudice’s of society that were so ingrained, were projected by P in the ways she treated him-
pay him to do work around the house and order him around and then laugh at him like he was
her ‘toy monkey with a battery up it’s arse.’
• P denied this. She says it was normal for kids to work for pocket money and that his antics
delighted her.
Wounded by betrayal:
• LS accuses of P of abandoning him just when he needed her the most - the incident with
Grace & P’s reaction made him feel that she didn’t care for him at all but only for her seats.
L’s feelings toward Richard are straightforward & uncomplicated but his feelings toward P are
more complicated and he struggles to categorise them - hate or love?
She was integral in his identity as a child so her betrayal shattered his confidence and trust- this
incident managed to end his innocence and trigger his bitterness.
• LS already struggled with feeling like he belonged & with his self esteem because of school,
so P’s reaction destroyed the small sense of belonging he still had and made him feel like an
intruder on his own land.
Condemned to dwell in pain:
He has claimed Dwaleni - the place of his childhood trauma - but instead of destroying it, he is
remodelling it - perhaps he is trying to make it a place he feels welcomed and included.
His affair with the white woman who ‘he doesn’t even really like’ could be a symbolic reflection
of his complicated feelings toward P.
We don’t really know if LS found the closure he was seeking in his decision to remodel the farm
and confront P or if he’s still seeking to belong & to shed the sense of betrayal and rejection.
Beauty: Togo
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