Houses Symbol Analysis

Throughout the story, houses represent the self, specifically the health of the human psyche. In the past tense of the story, Mrs. Drover’s family home appears as a place of sanctuary. She is eager to flee from her former fiancé in the garden, and to run back towards the house and the safety and company of her family. This suggests that, despite the background of wartime trauma and her discomfort within her mismatched romantic relationship, she is still healthy enough to retreat into herself and find comfort and stability.  This trope of the family home as sanctuary, however, is upturned in the present day. Returning to her street in London after the bombings, all of the houses have become ominous and threatening. It becomes evident that, in the context of warfare, the family home has been dislodged as a beacon of safety, and rather represents the threat of physical and psychological harm and the violence of wartime. Now, when Mrs. Drover enters her family home that she has shared with her husband and children for many years, she is submerged in traumatic memories, suggesting her mental health has substantially depleted since the First World War. This parallel between the self and the house is further established by the damage caused to the house by warfare, which is described as though it’s happening to a human body:  there is a “bruise” in the wallpaper and the piano has left “claw marks” on the carpet. Furthermore, Mrs. Drover’s mental health continues to deteriorate and worsen the longer she spends inside the house. In this way, the house’s progression from a stable sanctuary to a rundown, possibly haunted building mirrors the psychological trauma brought about by wartime violence.