Summary
Summary Notes on the dream house
- Course
- IEB NOTES MATRIC
- Institution
- Brescia House High School
these are in depth notes on The Dream House for English IEB grade 12
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The Dream Houseby Craig Higginson
- His theatre influences: Brechtian (theatre-he is a play writer); Aristotelian;
Socratic.
- Dream of the dog – play version of The Dream House.
- Dream of the dog – where the nation in South Africa is today.
- Literature offers us an opportunity to engage with other peoples lives. Offers
us a window into a world that we don’t have to physically go into ourselves.
- Catharsis – an out pouring of emotion. Strong emotions, pity/fear. You want
to feel like you can purge the feelings – moves you, has an emotional effect
on you, but you can move forward. (Aristotelian theatre)
- Brechtian theatre – opposite. When protagonist laughs, we cry. Problems
don’t get solved. The viewers leave the theatre wanting to create change.
Socratic dialogue. Members don’t feel purged, they feel provoked. The
audience doesn’t know what characters feel towards the end. *The Dream
House.
- Story tellers of today are aware we live in a complex world where reality
and truth are not situated in one fixed place.
- Complex nature of story telling & of characters in the novel.
- Story telling & listening of stories forces the audience or reader likes to
work/wake up. It refreshes their relationship of the world.
- Antidote: and when they close the book or leave the theatre, the feel grateful
for being reminded of the things that are important to them. They are also
pleased with the feelings of merit as apposed to those that are destructive.
(we decide what’s good and what’s not good by our own morals)
- Story telling – engage what’s happening around us, reminded of the things
that’s important to us, leaving wanting to be a better person.
, - Every revelation is contradicted by a related one. Always another story (2
sides of the story) life is layered – contradictory thing behind it.
- Different perspectives characters have on one another. Each person has a
different recollection of the events. (Beauty, Looksmart, Patricia)
- We edit the experience (story) how it can relate to us.
Looksmart has an issue with the mother character (Patricia) Craig had a
complicated relationship with his mother. – links
- Disassociation: he deals w this. we can engage with real issues but in a
foreign context. We are removed enough from it on an emotive level, but we
can engage in it.
- He writes with personal experience, but he alters & changes it. (beginning he
describes his dream house)
- He had traumatic experiences that he would write about. Ediple relationship –
mother figure is idealized by the child figure.
- Child figure – Looksmart, after tragedy (death) he then wants to make Patricia
know that he bought the land. He wants to replicate the farm house several
times over, be changed. The land is going to be shaped into something that
he can associate with and make it a gated community (that only certain
people can access). Previously disadvantaged – becomes advantaged. THE
OPRESS BECOMES THE OPRESSOR. The circle of history (south African
history)
- Lack within himself.
- Repeating history
- A lot of dissatisfaction in novel
- Allusions to characters & history
- A novel is written for a particular context. Want a provocation from the world
(reaction) Redempted quality to society. Offer some form of redemption – guilt
element. GUILT.
- Write a novel that is about SA now. Reality that is greater than him. Decay &
regeneration being pulled in different directions – the farm is decayed & they
are going to regenerate it into something new. SYMBOL.
- Apocalyptic association – the farm (Brechtian)
- No voice of authority telling the reader what to think/feel.
- Learn about the characters through the other characters.
- Constantly engaging, disengaging you and making you want more along the
way.
- Touch (Looksmart giving the beggars a coin, touches their hand) ground him,
but it grows. It restores him to the proper scale, brings him back to earth. He
ignores them along the way. (Waking you up to yourself/to your actions) Craig
wants us as South Africans to wake up. Wants us to reexperience our history.
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