The Dream House
Context:
• The land is no longer owned by the white farmers but it is owned by a company which will protect privilege
and maintain exclusion.
• The inhumanity and dispossession of the past is acknowledged. Black characters have some agency and
power.
• Primary access of hierarchy is class not race.
• At the end of the novel, 'The dog does not understand how much the world has changed.'
• New political, social and economic dimensions of power.
• such absolutes as ‘black’ and ‘white’, ‘African’ and ‘European’
• “Identity is portrayed as something that is manifold, complex and, in the end, mysterious.”
Title:
• an ideal and an illusion; a fantasy that will never become reality.
• Each of the characters yearns for their own version of ‘the dream house’:
o Patricia, the dream house is filled with family and love that never came to fruition at Dwaleni. She
imagines that house filled with the warmth and laughter of his family, bringing with them the love she
has always craved.
o Looksmart, meanwhile, seeks to create his dream house by remodelling the farmhouse at Dwaleni.
When he was a boy, the farmhouse represented a site of privilege from which he, as the child of a
black farm worker, was excluded. Though he formed a kind of mother-son bond with Patricia, the
racial divides dictated by apartheid meant that they could never truly be family. As an adult, he has
channelled the feelings of inadequacy, rage and hatred that stemmed from his exclusion into the farm
development project.
o Beauty’s dream house is simpler in its conception: ‘It has been her dream to have a house of her.
She has been saving towards this dream and has even requested a plot on which to build it. Her
dream house is a place in which she does not have to serve or answer to anyone else.
o Bheki’s dream house is less easily defined, but it is represented by the ideal of remaining with his
family and being in a position to care for them.
o Richard, meanwhile, is simply searching for a home in which he feels welcomed. As his marriage to
Patricia soured, he spent his entire adult life as a kind of exile on the farm, and observes that ‘it was
never his house, but hers, handed down from her father’
• For each of the characters, ‘the dream house’ is not just a physical space, but an ideal for which they yearn: a
state of bliss or happiness that they feel is missing from their lives or circumstances.
• On a more general level, ‘the dream house’ is something for which every South African yearns: Higginson
appears to be suggesting that many of us may not feel ‘at home’ in our own country and that the ideal of an
inclusive society has not yet been achieved.
Themes:
Truth & Reconciliation
the theme of ‘the truth’ – and how unattainable this can be. The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC) required people to tell the truth about the terrible things they did in the past so
there could be reconciliation. So, if we can’t get at the truth, how can we begin to reach
reconciliation? Apologise enough for reconciliation, or does it require more for this to happen?
As the narrative unfolds, multiple versions of the truth are presented and, as each layer of fact +
fiction is offered, the reader is encouraged to acknowledge that the notion of what is the truth might
not be a straightforward matter to establish.
• Past events can be represented in many different ways – and those representing them don’t have
access to all the facts. See Patricia & Looksmart. Only at the end of the novel is Patricia presented
with a truth that Looksmart would never be able to comprehend.
• The best people are those who are able to see the ugly truth and still choose paths of change &
growth (Beauty: sees the worst of people yet still remains compassionate).
• If we can’t get at the truth, how can we begin to reach reconciliation? Is the will to tell the truth and
to apologise enough for reconciliation, or does it require more for this to happen? You can already
see that the confrontation between Patricia and Looksmart, which lies at the heart of the novel, is
very much inspired by this concern.
• With this in mind, it is also clear that Richard (and Patricia if one is to side with Looksmart) is
exempt from any legal consequence for his actions. Nobody successfully challenges or punishes
him. Throughout his time in the house, Beauty and Patricia were working fervently to keep Richard
Context:
• The land is no longer owned by the white farmers but it is owned by a company which will protect privilege
and maintain exclusion.
• The inhumanity and dispossession of the past is acknowledged. Black characters have some agency and
power.
• Primary access of hierarchy is class not race.
• At the end of the novel, 'The dog does not understand how much the world has changed.'
• New political, social and economic dimensions of power.
• such absolutes as ‘black’ and ‘white’, ‘African’ and ‘European’
• “Identity is portrayed as something that is manifold, complex and, in the end, mysterious.”
Title:
• an ideal and an illusion; a fantasy that will never become reality.
• Each of the characters yearns for their own version of ‘the dream house’:
o Patricia, the dream house is filled with family and love that never came to fruition at Dwaleni. She
imagines that house filled with the warmth and laughter of his family, bringing with them the love she
has always craved.
o Looksmart, meanwhile, seeks to create his dream house by remodelling the farmhouse at Dwaleni.
When he was a boy, the farmhouse represented a site of privilege from which he, as the child of a
black farm worker, was excluded. Though he formed a kind of mother-son bond with Patricia, the
racial divides dictated by apartheid meant that they could never truly be family. As an adult, he has
channelled the feelings of inadequacy, rage and hatred that stemmed from his exclusion into the farm
development project.
o Beauty’s dream house is simpler in its conception: ‘It has been her dream to have a house of her.
She has been saving towards this dream and has even requested a plot on which to build it. Her
dream house is a place in which she does not have to serve or answer to anyone else.
o Bheki’s dream house is less easily defined, but it is represented by the ideal of remaining with his
family and being in a position to care for them.
o Richard, meanwhile, is simply searching for a home in which he feels welcomed. As his marriage to
Patricia soured, he spent his entire adult life as a kind of exile on the farm, and observes that ‘it was
never his house, but hers, handed down from her father’
• For each of the characters, ‘the dream house’ is not just a physical space, but an ideal for which they yearn: a
state of bliss or happiness that they feel is missing from their lives or circumstances.
• On a more general level, ‘the dream house’ is something for which every South African yearns: Higginson
appears to be suggesting that many of us may not feel ‘at home’ in our own country and that the ideal of an
inclusive society has not yet been achieved.
Themes:
Truth & Reconciliation
the theme of ‘the truth’ – and how unattainable this can be. The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC) required people to tell the truth about the terrible things they did in the past so
there could be reconciliation. So, if we can’t get at the truth, how can we begin to reach
reconciliation? Apologise enough for reconciliation, or does it require more for this to happen?
As the narrative unfolds, multiple versions of the truth are presented and, as each layer of fact +
fiction is offered, the reader is encouraged to acknowledge that the notion of what is the truth might
not be a straightforward matter to establish.
• Past events can be represented in many different ways – and those representing them don’t have
access to all the facts. See Patricia & Looksmart. Only at the end of the novel is Patricia presented
with a truth that Looksmart would never be able to comprehend.
• The best people are those who are able to see the ugly truth and still choose paths of change &
growth (Beauty: sees the worst of people yet still remains compassionate).
• If we can’t get at the truth, how can we begin to reach reconciliation? Is the will to tell the truth and
to apologise enough for reconciliation, or does it require more for this to happen? You can already
see that the confrontation between Patricia and Looksmart, which lies at the heart of the novel, is
very much inspired by this concern.
• With this in mind, it is also clear that Richard (and Patricia if one is to side with Looksmart) is
exempt from any legal consequence for his actions. Nobody successfully challenges or punishes
him. Throughout his time in the house, Beauty and Patricia were working fervently to keep Richard
