The Dream House Literary Elements

Novel

KwaZulu Natal Midlands; post-Apartheid South Africa; events recollected by characters in the present cover a thirty-year period.

The story is separated into sections seen through the perspective of multiple characters, but not told through the first-person perspective, using a narrative technique known as attached third-person point of view.

Tone: meditative, ambivalent, nostalgic, melancholy, foreboding

Mood: melancholy, nervous, suspenseful, dreamy

Protagonists: Patricia and Looksmart. Antagonist: Richard.

The conflict at the heart of the novel is the death of Grace and the mystery surrounding its precise circumstances.

The revelation of the truth about the death of Grace.

1. When Richard says he was waiting for the ambulance to come because he had "two dead children for you to pick up" (8), he foreshadows the reader learning that Grace was carrying his child
2. The narrator says that if anyone had looked into Beauty's eyes, they would have seen knowledge there, "smouldering like a fire" (64), which foreshadows all of Beauty's revelations later

1. "Dear Janet, please don't disturb Patricia with news of this event. With thanks, John" (224) is an understatement, as the "event" is his suicide, and Patricia will certainly be more than merely "disturbed"
2. Patricia's designation of herself and John Ford as "old friends" (224) is an understatement given the true nature of their relationship

1. A ticket stub to a play titled "Dream of the Dog" is an allusion to the author himself, who is the playwright of that very stage drama
2. There are numerous allusions to apartheid and post-apartheid events, issues, etc.
3. The narrator mentions the biblical curse of Eve, which is childbirth and its concomitant pains (100)
4. The "yellow ANC T-shirt" (155) Beauty gives to Richard is an allusion to the African National Congress, the organization that worked to end apartheid

See the separate "Imagery" section of this ClassicNote.

"The same silence: nothing has happened yet, even though everything has happened" (135)

The disagreement over the details of the fate of the fish in the recollection of the fishing trip of Looksmart and Patricia is paralleled by the ambiguity of the precise details of the death of Grace.

N/A.

1. "But her grave had been waiting for her all week..." (5)
2. "The flyscreen creaks against her, trying to push her back into the house, and then snaps back at her as she slips out, as if now wanting to keep her away for good" (23)
3. "his hatred was his most reliable companion...[it was] more patient and subtle" (35)
4. "she is trying to maneuver herself away from the pain—but it is always there to meet her, at every turning" (52)
5. "There is a terrible silence in the room now: the silence is waiting for him to speak into it" (111)