The Dream House Essay Questions

To what extent does each character in the novel validate or undermine the quote "The only real justice in this world is the one you make for yourself"?

In The Dream House, the theme of justice is explored often. Beauty creates her own justice by stealing the teacup from the Wileys, which becomes a symbol of their power and the white colonial power in South Africa. Patricia feels that by taking Looksmart in and making him a surrogate son, she is creating justice for herself after the loss of her child Rachel. Looksmart feels that he himself creates justice by taking over Dwaleni and making it a housing plot. Bheki's justice is right towards the end of the novel where he shoots Ethunzini, the last remaining Rottweiler—something he acknowledges to be his own form of justice.

Analyze the theme of identity in the novel with regard to the characters Beauty, Looksmart, and Patricia.

Looksmart fights with his identity for years. Since a small boy, he has found himself stuck between a world of the well-to-do white South Africans and that of the poor, mostly black South Africans. Patricia shows and allows him a life of opportunity and luxury, which has always been in stark contrast to his mother's life in a mud hut on the Dwaleni property. This difference in his life is made deeper by his move to the private school in town, with the wealth and privilege he experiences as a student at this school. He feels again stuck between a world of privilege and farm life, where he never truly feels as though he belongs, and leaves him trying to find his identity in many ways, including an extramarital affair. Patricia is at the end of her life and is contemplative about herself and her life; however, due to Looksmart's visit, she is left deeply questioning her memories and role as a motherly figure in Looksmart's life. Finally, Beauty is a person who has always felt she has a specific place in life, which is at the side of the Wileys as a servant to the family. Even though she is moving with them to Dwaleni, she is beginning to wonder if her life there is going to be just as it was in Dwaleni, and if the house of her own that she so desires is no closer to being a reality.

What is the symbolic narrative meaning of the open plan in the development?

Looksmart describes his goals for the community, explaining what he will be doing to the Dwaleni house. He describes cutting down trees and essentially keeping the farmhouse but doing so with an "open plan." This isn't just an architectural change; this has symbolic resonance because for so long, the house and its residents were full of secrets and repressed memories, and Looksmart's visit and his development plan have opened and will continue to open things up to the world. Memories have been unearthed, secrets revealed; this is a corollary to the changes coming to the house and the landscape.

Why does Bheki stay?

Bheki might seem to be affiliated with the Wileys, having worked with them for decades, but he is not as keen to stay with them as one might think. His overriding concern and interest is his son Bongani, who needs support due to his deafness, and when Looksmart comes to him and offers him a position to stay on at the Dwaleni property, he barely deliberates before he decides to do it. He is also compelled by, and agrees with, Looksmart's claim that "it was the time for black people to help each other. That the time of getting help from the whites is finished" (217). Ultimately, he does not feel the need to go to Durban and replicate his life here on the farm; it is time for his life and his son's life to be more central—not the Wileys' lives.

Why does Beauty go?

Beauty's relationship with Patricia is a nuanced one: she isn't a doormat, but she has yoked her life to Patricia's and is going with her to Durban. This might initially seem odd given the fact that she is still going to be living with the man who was responsible for her sister's murder, but she has compelling reasons, in her mind, to stay. She needs a job, she has made her peace with the past, and she does seem to have some sort of affection for Patricia. She does not want to marry and cannot have children of her own, so she is making a choice that works for her. She does have some misgivings, though: "She has been telling herself that she is looking forward to going down to Durban...but now she is not so sure about Durban, or the meaning of Durban. Perhaps she will be doing nothing more there than treading the same path but in a different place" (208). She ends up going, but we can speculate as to how happy she will truly be—and if she will ever get a "dream house" of her own.