English notes:
Prelim:
- Antony and Cleo – over the essays
The Dream House
- Q3&4 – approx. 800 words
Chose the topic
- Expect Quotations throughout our paragraphs – ¾ quotes per paragraph
- Novel deals with End Times also referred to Eschatology.
- Patricia and Richard nearing the end of life, John Ford dies. Farm slowly
dying. Apartheid Regime already dead. Children and Dogs dead.
- Also, a sense of renewal – Birth – Reconstruction of the farm
- Novel built on a paradox of old and new – construction and destruction –
trauma and acceptance
- Talking about the past and the future – how to make future a lot more
meaningful.
- Present is a moment of chaos, confusion, indecision, hatred and cynicism
- Speaks about South Africa and Rainbowism
- South Africa comes from a Turbid past
- History of south Africa – secrecy
- 1994 – gone from the horrid past to this wonderful future
- If you don’t tap into the past it rears its ugly head in the present.
- The countless boxes being packed repeatedly – cannot just pack away the
past – shift through the past to understand what to do in order to be able to
have some control over the future
- Future is a realistic one.
- Dwaleni – place of rock – supposed to be there transgenerational \
The farm no longer has meaning with the present. It is an anachronism – out
of place, no meaning. It has a lot of death, trauma, secrecy.
- Tap into the past, sort out the past and take with you what is important, must
learn your lesson. –
- lessons Patricia needs to learn is that she must take responsibility for the
horror that has happened to the farm.
- When she goes into the kitchen, she thought it would be the heart of the home
“grace granted” – white privilege. She took it for granted that this privilege
made her better that others – have to work for grace – doesn’t come naturally
- Questions asked at the end of the book should have been asked before
- Book deals with Relationships/ lack of, land.
- Cannot forget the past
- Richard always associated with Sexuality (bad one)
- Only successful thing she has done is tap into the past
- When Looksmart disappears she just regarded him as another dead child
- We understand what she needs to do about grace (white privilege, she had to
work for things) and Grace (the probing of Graces death)
- She is aware of her accountability
, - Patricia plays lip service to being a liberal
1. She things she is a liberal – offers Looksmart education
thinking that she is offering him a better life
2. She thinks that coming from the old SA she thinks that
she knows
3. Unconscious prejudice – beauty – bosses her around
4. Looksmart’s mother – where he is educated – white –
when he goes home, he goes to his little mud bungalow
5. Lack of being a liberal is seen in the way she deals with
graces death – she believes the stories told, dogs and
police. Probing should have started when the first young
girl went into the stables/dairy with the British girl.
6. When grace is mauled by the dogs her reaction isn’t the
one seen by one with humanism – first thing she does is
sent Looksmart to get her in the car and she only cares
about the seats – white power
7. She never questioned – not sufficiently ethical in
questioning
8. Command beauty, ignore Richard live life in misery
9. She can’t walk – metonym for her inability to find freedom
in her own life – cant tap into what is wrong – mist
(opening – first thing she notices) She is calling on the
mist – happier at living in an area that she doesn’t
engage with the outside. Mist – cover of reality, pathetic
fallacy
10. She is surrounded by failure – only loved two people
(father and Rachel – Looksmart was a replacement)
a. Lost signs of hope
11. Mother died when she was very young – deprived of that
relationship
12. Associate Richard as her sexual awakening – marries
him out of obligation – her sexual awakening ends with
Richard
13. Before Rachel was born, she had a sense of everything
being perfect however Rachel died, and she feels the
hollowness seep in – first experience as a married
woman with trauma – When Rachel dies then her
marriage dies.
14. Feels like a failure – Looksmart replaces Rachel –
surrogate son – almost Oedipus, she loves him, and he
adores her.
15. Relationship with John Ford is particular kind of
relationship – john himself is burying the trauma – he is
trapped unlike Patricia that ignores it. – cancer
16. With Looksmart as he is growing up she is trying to
create him as that little white boy but when he left she
never wonders why – the love she shares for him is seen
as another failure – cathartic when everything pours out.
– she figures out that he mythologised grace and he
doesn’t know about the unborn child and her death.
Prelim:
- Antony and Cleo – over the essays
The Dream House
- Q3&4 – approx. 800 words
Chose the topic
- Expect Quotations throughout our paragraphs – ¾ quotes per paragraph
- Novel deals with End Times also referred to Eschatology.
- Patricia and Richard nearing the end of life, John Ford dies. Farm slowly
dying. Apartheid Regime already dead. Children and Dogs dead.
- Also, a sense of renewal – Birth – Reconstruction of the farm
- Novel built on a paradox of old and new – construction and destruction –
trauma and acceptance
- Talking about the past and the future – how to make future a lot more
meaningful.
- Present is a moment of chaos, confusion, indecision, hatred and cynicism
- Speaks about South Africa and Rainbowism
- South Africa comes from a Turbid past
- History of south Africa – secrecy
- 1994 – gone from the horrid past to this wonderful future
- If you don’t tap into the past it rears its ugly head in the present.
- The countless boxes being packed repeatedly – cannot just pack away the
past – shift through the past to understand what to do in order to be able to
have some control over the future
- Future is a realistic one.
- Dwaleni – place of rock – supposed to be there transgenerational \
The farm no longer has meaning with the present. It is an anachronism – out
of place, no meaning. It has a lot of death, trauma, secrecy.
- Tap into the past, sort out the past and take with you what is important, must
learn your lesson. –
- lessons Patricia needs to learn is that she must take responsibility for the
horror that has happened to the farm.
- When she goes into the kitchen, she thought it would be the heart of the home
“grace granted” – white privilege. She took it for granted that this privilege
made her better that others – have to work for grace – doesn’t come naturally
- Questions asked at the end of the book should have been asked before
- Book deals with Relationships/ lack of, land.
- Cannot forget the past
- Richard always associated with Sexuality (bad one)
- Only successful thing she has done is tap into the past
- When Looksmart disappears she just regarded him as another dead child
- We understand what she needs to do about grace (white privilege, she had to
work for things) and Grace (the probing of Graces death)
- She is aware of her accountability
, - Patricia plays lip service to being a liberal
1. She things she is a liberal – offers Looksmart education
thinking that she is offering him a better life
2. She thinks that coming from the old SA she thinks that
she knows
3. Unconscious prejudice – beauty – bosses her around
4. Looksmart’s mother – where he is educated – white –
when he goes home, he goes to his little mud bungalow
5. Lack of being a liberal is seen in the way she deals with
graces death – she believes the stories told, dogs and
police. Probing should have started when the first young
girl went into the stables/dairy with the British girl.
6. When grace is mauled by the dogs her reaction isn’t the
one seen by one with humanism – first thing she does is
sent Looksmart to get her in the car and she only cares
about the seats – white power
7. She never questioned – not sufficiently ethical in
questioning
8. Command beauty, ignore Richard live life in misery
9. She can’t walk – metonym for her inability to find freedom
in her own life – cant tap into what is wrong – mist
(opening – first thing she notices) She is calling on the
mist – happier at living in an area that she doesn’t
engage with the outside. Mist – cover of reality, pathetic
fallacy
10. She is surrounded by failure – only loved two people
(father and Rachel – Looksmart was a replacement)
a. Lost signs of hope
11. Mother died when she was very young – deprived of that
relationship
12. Associate Richard as her sexual awakening – marries
him out of obligation – her sexual awakening ends with
Richard
13. Before Rachel was born, she had a sense of everything
being perfect however Rachel died, and she feels the
hollowness seep in – first experience as a married
woman with trauma – When Rachel dies then her
marriage dies.
14. Feels like a failure – Looksmart replaces Rachel –
surrogate son – almost Oedipus, she loves him, and he
adores her.
15. Relationship with John Ford is particular kind of
relationship – john himself is burying the trauma – he is
trapped unlike Patricia that ignores it. – cancer
16. With Looksmart as he is growing up she is trying to
create him as that little white boy but when he left she
never wonders why – the love she shares for him is seen
as another failure – cathartic when everything pours out.
– she figures out that he mythologised grace and he
doesn’t know about the unborn child and her death.
