The Dream House
Characters, Themes
and Analysis
Part of our English Handbook, available at:
iebsaviour.co.za
©IEB Saviour (Pty) Ltd 2012 – 2020. Distribution of this document is illegal
, iebsaviour.co.za – Your note in shining armour
Characters
Patricia
• Female protagonist
• Elderly woman who has difficult walking
• She is defined by disappointment
• Her life has not unfolded in the way that she imagined as a young woman
o The ideal of a house full of children and a happy marriage never materialised
▪ Her first child was stillborn, and she was left barren
o She was trapped in a marriage that quickly soured, turned rancid by disappointment
and unspoken resentment
• Years of bitterness + regret turn her into a rancorous (resentful) woman
• [as she prepares to leave the farm] her thoughts are preoccupied with failure + emptiness
she is leaving behind: the house, stripped of years of clutter and memories, suddenly
becomes dark + dilapidated
• She knows how the farm is symbolic of the life she has lived with her husband, characterised
by a lack of fulfilment and mutual disdain
• She is consumed by the desire to connect on an emotional + spiritual level with another
human being
o Two significant bonds she forms:
▪ John Ford
▪ Looksmart
Affairs of the heart
• [feeling justified by Richard’s extramarital affairs] she pursued her own affair with John Ford
• She was drawn to him ‘because he was everything Richard was not.’
• However, she was disappointed – he was never able to offer her the emotional connection
she craved
o They never had the connection that he and Anna (his late wife) had
• He ‘tended to withhold himself’
• Even in his death she feels she somehow cheated him
• He may contend that he wanted to spare her the full impact of the pain of his illness +
decision to end his life, be she feels that he denied her “the opportunity to care – to feel
extravagantly” through his decision to exclude her
• The death of Rachel numbed her emotionally + she seems to have been seeking a way out of
this deadened state – yearning to reconnect with her emotions and reawaken to life
o John fails her
o He withholds himself from her – doesn’t even say that he loves her
© IEB Saviour. Distribution of this document is illegal.
, iebsaviour.co.za – Your note in shining armour
• “The emptiness in her body, just below the heart, has never left her. She can summon it up
merely by thinking about it. A sensation like butterflies trying to get out”
• “The one thing she hadn’t provided for John was a place of truth. The truth has eluded
him. It eluded both of them.”
The prodigal son
• He was, for her, a surrogate son – someone on whom to lavish her frustrated maternal love
• She was present at his birth and was drawn to him immediately
• His arrival represented a kind of rebirth for her, when she felt as though “everything was
washed clean”
• “Because the boy expected the best of the Madam, and thought nothing of her sorrow, he
managed to provide a place where she could laugh again and be a better person for a
while.”
• However, Looksmart was destined to be another disappointment for her
o As he grew older + his awareness of the society into which he had been born began
to develop, Patricia sensed that he “started to judge” her.
o She didn’t appreciate how traumatised Looksmart had been by Grace’s violent death
and so, as far as she was concerned, he had simply abandoned her + vanished
o Looksmart’s desertion was difficult for her to bear + “when he went it was like all
the colour had faded from the world”
o In her view, their relationship “had been far too significant” to cut ties forever, but
as years passed, she “came to think of him as another dead child”
▪ She may have been protecting herself from the harsh truth that she meant
less to him than he did to her
o The memory of Looksmart became another source of pain
• “She spent her whole life watching the things that have mattered the most to her leaving
her.”
Wilful Ignorance?
• She is largely ignorant of the impact of apartheid ideology on her relationship with
Looksmart
• As the outsider, the one deemed inferior because of the colour of his skin, Looksmart
became acutely aware of the unbreachable divide between them, but Patricia, as the
beneficiary of an unjust system, was in a more comfortable position to accept the social
hierarchy that divided them
• Looksmart says that Patricia “was always so good at telling others to face up to the truth,
yet she could never see what was standing right there in front of her”
• She chose to ignore the violent injustice of apartheid (even as war raged on her door step)
• However, she wasn’t untouched by its ideologies
o She isn’t as prejudiced as Richard, but her racism betrays itself in subtle +
unconscious ways
o She tends to shy away from the truth
© IEB Saviour. Distribution of this document is illegal.
Characters, Themes
and Analysis
Part of our English Handbook, available at:
iebsaviour.co.za
©IEB Saviour (Pty) Ltd 2012 – 2020. Distribution of this document is illegal
, iebsaviour.co.za – Your note in shining armour
Characters
Patricia
• Female protagonist
• Elderly woman who has difficult walking
• She is defined by disappointment
• Her life has not unfolded in the way that she imagined as a young woman
o The ideal of a house full of children and a happy marriage never materialised
▪ Her first child was stillborn, and she was left barren
o She was trapped in a marriage that quickly soured, turned rancid by disappointment
and unspoken resentment
• Years of bitterness + regret turn her into a rancorous (resentful) woman
• [as she prepares to leave the farm] her thoughts are preoccupied with failure + emptiness
she is leaving behind: the house, stripped of years of clutter and memories, suddenly
becomes dark + dilapidated
• She knows how the farm is symbolic of the life she has lived with her husband, characterised
by a lack of fulfilment and mutual disdain
• She is consumed by the desire to connect on an emotional + spiritual level with another
human being
o Two significant bonds she forms:
▪ John Ford
▪ Looksmart
Affairs of the heart
• [feeling justified by Richard’s extramarital affairs] she pursued her own affair with John Ford
• She was drawn to him ‘because he was everything Richard was not.’
• However, she was disappointed – he was never able to offer her the emotional connection
she craved
o They never had the connection that he and Anna (his late wife) had
• He ‘tended to withhold himself’
• Even in his death she feels she somehow cheated him
• He may contend that he wanted to spare her the full impact of the pain of his illness +
decision to end his life, be she feels that he denied her “the opportunity to care – to feel
extravagantly” through his decision to exclude her
• The death of Rachel numbed her emotionally + she seems to have been seeking a way out of
this deadened state – yearning to reconnect with her emotions and reawaken to life
o John fails her
o He withholds himself from her – doesn’t even say that he loves her
© IEB Saviour. Distribution of this document is illegal.
, iebsaviour.co.za – Your note in shining armour
• “The emptiness in her body, just below the heart, has never left her. She can summon it up
merely by thinking about it. A sensation like butterflies trying to get out”
• “The one thing she hadn’t provided for John was a place of truth. The truth has eluded
him. It eluded both of them.”
The prodigal son
• He was, for her, a surrogate son – someone on whom to lavish her frustrated maternal love
• She was present at his birth and was drawn to him immediately
• His arrival represented a kind of rebirth for her, when she felt as though “everything was
washed clean”
• “Because the boy expected the best of the Madam, and thought nothing of her sorrow, he
managed to provide a place where she could laugh again and be a better person for a
while.”
• However, Looksmart was destined to be another disappointment for her
o As he grew older + his awareness of the society into which he had been born began
to develop, Patricia sensed that he “started to judge” her.
o She didn’t appreciate how traumatised Looksmart had been by Grace’s violent death
and so, as far as she was concerned, he had simply abandoned her + vanished
o Looksmart’s desertion was difficult for her to bear + “when he went it was like all
the colour had faded from the world”
o In her view, their relationship “had been far too significant” to cut ties forever, but
as years passed, she “came to think of him as another dead child”
▪ She may have been protecting herself from the harsh truth that she meant
less to him than he did to her
o The memory of Looksmart became another source of pain
• “She spent her whole life watching the things that have mattered the most to her leaving
her.”
Wilful Ignorance?
• She is largely ignorant of the impact of apartheid ideology on her relationship with
Looksmart
• As the outsider, the one deemed inferior because of the colour of his skin, Looksmart
became acutely aware of the unbreachable divide between them, but Patricia, as the
beneficiary of an unjust system, was in a more comfortable position to accept the social
hierarchy that divided them
• Looksmart says that Patricia “was always so good at telling others to face up to the truth,
yet she could never see what was standing right there in front of her”
• She chose to ignore the violent injustice of apartheid (even as war raged on her door step)
• However, she wasn’t untouched by its ideologies
o She isn’t as prejudiced as Richard, but her racism betrays itself in subtle +
unconscious ways
o She tends to shy away from the truth
© IEB Saviour. Distribution of this document is illegal.
