Summary
Summary The Dreamhouse Notes
- Course
- English
- Book
- The dream house
In-depth notes on the novel, The Dreamhouse. Complete with quotes and themes.
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
5 reviews
By: shivanijhb • 3 year ago
By: DanDaPora • 3 year ago
By: tonideswardt • 3 year ago
By: wendysippel • 4 year ago
Lucid and generally well constructed but there are a number of careless errors.
By: JennaHenry • 4 year ago
Content preview
THE DREAMHOUSE NOTESGENERAL
- Narrated from 5 perspectives
o Looksmart
o Patricia
o Richard
o Beauty
o Bheki
- Event occurs over 2 days
- There is dramatic irony
- Contemporary story
- Epigraph
o quotation by Ted Hughes
§ sets the tone/ hints at the theme
§ Or the subject matter of the text
§ “there is no better way to know us. Than as two wolves, comes separately to a wood”
- brings up similar issues
o Longing for truth
o A desire for revenge/ justice
o A sense of power or domination
o A competing for territory
o The possibility of self-destruction
- Sense of emotional deadness in novel
- Takes place
o Has its origin from Dream of the dog (play)
o On a farm in Kwa-Zulu Natal
- Title
o Masochistic about Looksmart building replicas of the house where the painful event took place.
o Dreams can sometimes be nightmares
o Looksmart is taking control
§ control of the land, money, and power
• he had none of that when he was a young man
o he doesn't in that he’s building a house where all those painful memories
took place.
o Looksmart is building houses that are “dream houses” for somebody else.
THEMES
Memory and truth
- Dementia
o The unreliable nature of memory is poignantly explored through Richard’s suffering from an advanced
stage of dementia.
o Higginson sensitively and effectively captures Richard’s sense of disorientation, frustration and fear as
he roams through
§ the farmlands
§ trying to navigate the ravaged landscape of his own mind.
- Each of the characters are à trying to grope through the mists
o both literal and figurative
o that enshroud them to find the truth of their collective past, but the ‘truth’, it turns out, will not be
the same for each of them.
,Loss and disappointment
- An unfulfilling marriage
- a stillborn child
- an unrequited love
- a vicious assault
- a brutal murder
- As these characters trawl through the past and, quite literally, unearth the bones from long-forgotten graves,
they are forced to examine how these past pains and losses have shaped the people they have since become.
Retribution and forgiveness
- An unspoken need for forgiveness haunts the characters
o as they are forced to confront the distressing revelations from the past.
- For hatred and resentment to be released, pardon must be sought, even from those who are in no position to
grant it.
- The novel closes on an ambiguously optimistic note, nonetheless, as each character departs Dwaleni Farm
with a deeper understanding of the pain they have felt there
Truth
- truth is constructed
- Different people have different perspectives of an event.
o And how unattainable this can be.
- Because we are human, none of us have the true picture
- Having to face yourself and your own actions, facing responsibilities.
- Does truth actually exist
Love and hate
- Looksmart loved Grace
o Beauty’s sister
One’s past actions
- can/should they define one?
Storytelling
- stories of people's lives are constructed
Having empathy
- Forgiveness and exoneration
- To be cleared of any guilt
Language
- Disempowered when someone takes away the other person’s right to education or to speak their own
language.
- Becomes a weapon and source of power
- Can determine your worldview
- Patricia and Richard can speak isiZulu fluently
o it doesn't mean that they understand Bheki and Beauty properly.
- isiZulu
o used as a language of command not of sharing experiences and therefore almost creating a barrier
o Used and abused
o Lie, deceive
o Will to connect
o Can be used to lie
o Adds colour and authenticity to the novel
o Appropriate to context and setting
- English
o Used and abused
o Both accessibility and communicate or older people
o Looksmart uses playfully, ironically, sometimes as a weapon and sometimes as a wand
, The shadow of the past
- how the past impacts on the present at both a personal and national level
o persistent inequality and racismà but not self-righteous or blatantly didactic
o the personal struggles of the main characters of the novel take on greater significance.
§ trying to discard the burdens of the past and make a fresh start
§ Will confronting the truth of the past mean that they can free themselves of hatred?
§ Or are the wrongs of the past too indelibly etched on their characters to be erased?
SYMBOLS
Dogs
- Dealing with people that see dogs a part of their family
- Also dealing with people that cannot understand who treat their dogs better than they treat people
Bloodwood tree
OTHER
- The love between unlikely mother and son
- Looksmart wants Patricia to love him as a son
- The novel not about white guilt
#metoo
- Why Grace’s story only came out later
- Beauty is not in a position to tell anyone
- Who do the police believe
- No one would listen or believe
- Employers should not abuse his power in the matter Richard abused Grace
CHARACTERS
Patricia Wiley
- Most change
- Wants a family and a home
o Why she wants to go to Durban
o Father was there
- Dream house
o One at the pond where Looksmart and her were fishing
- Defines by loss and disappointment
- Steadfastly ignored unpleasant and painful truths of her life
- Confronted with the devastating consequences of her past actions
- Lost control of herself and her body
Looksmart
- Phiwayinkosi
- Too attached to the farmhouse
o Replays his trauma
§ In the process, he destroys the land and Patricia’s dream house in Durban
- Starts out as the antagonist
- Disintegrated
- Tries to emancipate himself when coming back to the farm
- Left parts of himself behind when becoming successful
- Living in denial of what he has been
o Beggars in the city → tried to connect with them
- His affair
o White women
- Patricia and Richard paid for his education
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through EFT, credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying this summary from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller MBanks. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy this summary for R70,00. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
60434 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy summaries for 14 years now