Detailed notes on The Dream House novel by Craig Higginson.
Included is a list of useful quotes, character analysis, theme breakdown and addition notes on the novel.
Rising action
- LS arrival causes tension
- The subject of the past events which has led up to rising action are referred to
Climax
- G murder/death
Falling action
- Revisiting past [explaining + trying to understand past]
“Resolution”
- Death and departure [making space for LS’s new beginning]
Introduction
- Throughout noble, dilapidated farmhouse [Dwaleni] is a central concern for the
characters
● P = happy to leave farm behind
● R = clings to demented memories of farm [wanders around and looks for Rachel]
● B and Bh = quiet about feelings towards house
● LS = obsessed with house and Whiley’s [comes back later in life]. Symbol of
what he desired as young boy [wanted to live in house like that]
Characters
● R = racist, resentful, old white man
● P = colonialist and paternalistic old white woman [feel burden to educate and uplift black
people] - helps B save money and pays for LS education
● B = female black worker who is aware of her powerlessness and inadequacy
● Bh = male black worker [equally aware of his powerlessness but keeps his silence
looking for a way out]
● LS = black, newly affluent working-class man
, English
Patricia
- Aging, struggling to walk
- Can’t fit in mirror, overweight
- Lacks emotional engagement
- Apathetic [showing no interest or concern]
- Peeling and dilapidated walls
- Inaction during Gs death
- LS refers to her house as a “peasants house”
- Doesn't make an effort to understand why LS left the farm
- Had good life with father, and though good life was a birthright [but you have to work
hard to get a good life]
- Embarrassed about wheelchair
- Dogs are a big part of her life
- Dreamt about her old house in Durban; “she has had dreams about it”
- Not close to R
- Fell in love with John Ford
- Richard and Patricia both lost mothers
- Distant and strained relationship with R
- Doesn't like dealing with reality [does this through humor] “always looking for the
joke”
- Thinks LS is a robber and anticipates rape and assault
- Looking through old boxes [descriptive and reflective style]
- Insensitive - says if Grace didn't scream and run dogs wouldn't have attacked her
- Feels her whole life has been a bit pointless
- LS wants to compress his emotions to the size of a walnut so he can cope with it, P
wants to compress her life [she's been dying inside, marriage falling apart + loss of child]
- Only married R cause she fell pregnant
- Only happy when LS came - “i was happy again for a bit”
- Wrote LS letters every sunday and gave him things [materialistic] but he wanted to stay
with her
- Not her dream house “I hope they knock it down - brick by brick”
- P is thinking of leaving R behind, as a parting gift to LS
- Still uses word “Roo”, does she still have some affection for him perhaps
- For P, J wasn't a home - their relationship was one of the many untruths in her life
- P can’t accept that she was racist by not letting G into her car
- White privileged person [product of her time], has biased
- Can't believe R would do that [unconscious biased]
- Was prepared to open her eyes a little bit after hearing the truth [prepared to admit she
didn't know the whole truth vs R who wasn't - saw only in black and white]
- Deeply apathetic and disconnected
- Oblivious to pain she has put LS through
- Invested all her hopes and dreams in LS because had nothing else [he couldn't do that]
- “Do you know that your garden-boy is now driving a MB” [different perspectives]
- “What she can recall is her irritation with the girl”
, English
Richard
- Has dementia
- Roo = affectionate name from Patricia
- Confused & keeps thinking of the past
- Refers to Patricia as an “old bitch”
- Very confused [willing to dig up Rachel with his bare hands]
- His conscience feels guilty so he tries to build a square, dark room with no windows or
doors
- Still racist, even after apartheid
- Says LS reminds him of uncle Pete [uncle who raped the friends daughter]
- Truth about R forgetting, “don't you want to give yourself some peace” - P to R
asking him to confess
- “I can't even - look at you” + “go - leave - get out - get out of my sight”
- Richard never revealed who he was himself but rather we found out through other
characters
- Stuck in past [apartheid]
- Always been antagonist
- Never able to come to terms with loss of daughter [haunted by cry of dead child]
- “No end to her malice” [aggression and awfulness] - R about P
- Pathetic/lost [reference to fall from power after apartheid - no use or place for you or
mindset]
Beauty
- Works for house
- Loves Bh [even though he's older and has a son]
- Scared of Richard
- Optimist
- Stole from Patricia [teacup]
- Yearning for another life [cup resembles power] & [treasures paint]
- Has a dream of her house [Patricia adds into savings account for Beauty]
- Thinks Looksmart is arrogant
- Beauty has knowledge and knows something about Looksmart
- Wasn't good enough/pretty enough for Looksmart [uglier younger sister]
- Beauty perspective of Looksmarts family [difficult]
- Quiet commentator
- Ironic that her name is Beauty as LS doesn’t think she’s the prettier sister
- Can't tell on boss [will get fired]
- After all these years she still does everything for them [she is someone who endures,
does what is asked of her] “wiping his arse”
- “Even now she is frightened of uBaas”
- Doesn't appreciate LS demeaning her [her perspective is they have never been fond of
each other]
- Didn't have all that many options [had to put her happiness away to survive]
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