Houses Symbol Analysis

Throughout the story, houses are used as a symbol of “happy endings” consisting of romantic success and marriage, a suburban nuclear family, and personal and economic prosperity. In scenario A, one of the staples of John and Mary’s “happy ending” is that they are able to afford a “charming house.” Similarly, in scenario C, John and his wife Madge purchase a house just before real estate values go up, enabling them to continue to live a happy life without economic precarity. In scenario D, the characters must survive a tidal wave, which threatens the “charming house” by the seashore. In all of the scenarios, the house also represents a living situation typical of marriage. Like the institution of marriage itself, the house represents a fixed ending to any story, as it permanently situates the characters in the story not only in terms of their relationships with one another, but also in a physical location from which they will not move. The house symbolizes prosperity both economically and in terms of personal relationships, but it also hints at the suburban sterility of a typical “happy ending.”