Previous
Chapter 1
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dream House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Privilege, Understanding, and Historical Change
Truth, Accountability, and Memory
Parental Love vs. Romantic Love
Rebirth and New Beginnings
Humor, Ignorance, and Denial
Summary
Analysis
Richard. Richard reaches the bloodwoods. He believes a dairy is on the other side of the trees, but when he gets there, he finds ruins. He wonders how much time has passed, where the animals have gone, and whether their absence is the fault of Patricia, whom he thinks of as “the old bitch.” He hopes Patricia has died—but realizes she hasn’t, since someone has been taking care of his boots. Thinking of Rachel, he asks himself where the others have “hidden” her. He has dreams about her, mostly as a newborn, but sometimes at other ages she never reached.
Richard’s confusion about how much time has passed and what has happened to the farm reminds the reader not only that Richard suffers from dementia but also that human memory is fallible. Richard’s obsessive focus on Rachel—implied to be his and Patricia’s dead baby—underlines the importance of parent-child relationships, while his derogatory thoughts about Patricia underline the novel’s pattern of failed romances.
Themes
Looksmart. Since Looksmart encounters no security entering the Wileys’ house through the back, he considers whether the Wileys might have already moved. But he hears a Rottweiler barking and feels assured the Wileys wouldn’t have left behind this specific dog, which he’s surprised is still alive. Entering the kitchen, he finds it more modest than he expected. He hears Patricia calling for Beauty “like she’s calling one of her dogs” and thinks that if Richard is around, Richard will shoot him—but he doesn’t sense Richard. He hopes Richard has died.
Patricia is moving out of this house to make a fresh start. Thus, the house represents a past Patricia wants to forget. Entering the house after a long absence, Looksmart symbolically forces the house’s past into Patricia’s present awareness. His memory of the Wileys’ dogs, and his perception that Patricia calls Beauty like “one of her dogs,” hints that dogs may symbolize something negative about how white employers treat their Black employees.
Themes
As Looksmart walks down the hallway, Patricia calls out asking whether he’s Beauty. Looksmart notes Patricia sounds self-assured, not frightened. Light from the sitting room infiltrates the hallway, and Looksmart sees shadows of hooks to hang pictures on. He remembers photos of Patricia that used to hang there and, in particular, a photo of Richard posing, emotionless after “his casual act of violence,” with two leopards he’d shot. As a child, Looksmart coveted the leopard skins, which used to hang over sofas in the sitting room.
That Patricia doesn’t sound scared, even though an unknown person is walking through her house, may suggest that privilege has insulated her life from danger. Looksmart’s memory of a photograph in which Richard feels nothing at his own “casual act of violence,” meanwhile, hints that Richard may have been violent at other times in the past.
Themes
When Looksmart enters the sitting room, Patricia’s old and unwell appearance shocks him. Yet when she greets him, she sounds like the same humorous person: “She is always looking for the joke, Patricia […] the thing to steer her gaze away from the unbearable present.”
Looksmart’s shock at Patricia’s appearance shows that a long time has passed since he last saw her—she doesn’t match his memories. Yet his recognition that she uses humor to avoid “the unbearable present” suggests he knows her well.
Themes
Get the entire The Dream House LitChart as a printable PDF.
Patricia asks who it is. Looksmart stays in the shadows, examining the room, noticing the boxes, the missing leopard skins, and an apple and knife on the table. Though he wonders whether having seen her deteriorating state might be “revenge enough,” it feels odd that she doesn’t know who he is—though he hasn’t seen her in nearly 25 years—because he was used to her total attention when they were together.
Here, readers learn that Looksmart wants “revenge” against Patricia, foreshadowing future revelations about some wrong she has committed. Yet it makes him uncomfortable when she doesn’t recognize him, which suggests he retains some emotional investment in the quasi-maternal attention she paid him when he was a child.
Themes
Patricia, still not recognizing Looksmart in the shadows, asks what he wants. Not knowing how to reply, he notes that they still have the dog. When Patricia asks which dog, he says the dog on the veranda—Chloe. Patricia says that dog is Ethunzini. Looksmart asks whether Ethunzini is Chloe’s puppy, and Patricia tells him that Chloe died before she had any puppies. He says: “It doesn’t matter […] It’s still the same dog.” Patricia asks whether she knows him, and he steps out of the shadows into the light.
This novel was published in 2015. If Looksmart hasn’t seen Patricia in nearly 25 years, he last saw her in the early 1990s, just as South Africa was in the process of repealing their racist apartheid laws. Since dogs have previously represented the relationship between white employers and Black employees, when Looksmart claims the dog Patricia owned in the 1990s and the dog she has now are “the same,” he seems to imply that South African race relations didn’t really change after apartheid’s end.
Themes
Patricia. Patricia hears a strange man’s footsteps, realizes something odd is happening, and sees a man wearing a suit (Looksmart) in the doorway. They discuss the barking dog, which the man believes is Chloe but which Patricia says is Ethunzini. Patricia recalls the man’s voice but, finding his presence hard to believe, asks whether she knows him. He replies, “You might have thought so once” and identifies himself as Looksmart. Patricia cries out that he’s come back. He tells her he’s a “different man.” When she notes that he’s wearing a suit, he seems insulted and says he does that.
Looksmart’s claim that Patricia “might have thought” she knew him implies that she never really did—that her privilege blinded her to his reality. His claim that he’s a “different man” suggests that he believes he has been somehow transformed or reborn since leaving the farm. Despite his standoffishness, Patricia seems to remember Looksmart fondly: she cries out with surprise and possibly joy at his return.
Themes
Patricia admits she thought she’d never see Looksmart again and didn’t recognize him. He asks whether it’s because of the suit. Patricia thinks it’s “his way of wearing it”—like it’s a “disguise” or an insult. Patricia asks how long it’s been and notes that times have changed. Looksmart, seeming insulted, replies that times have changed but that Patricia has remained in place—though she seems less scary now. When Patricia protests she was never scary, Looksmart says he had to stare up at her when he was a child—and indicates his former height. Patricia points out he was much taller than that by the time of his departure.
In the previous passage, Looksmart claimed he’s a “different man.” Yet here, Patricia sees his suit as a “disguise”—hinting that Looksmart hasn’t been reborn but is simply hiding his original self. When Patricia and Looksmart discuss how times have changed, they may be alluding to increasing legal equality in South Africa between different racial groups. Given their discussion of Looksmart’s childhood height, they are likely also discussing changes in their former quasi-parent/child relationship. By comparing historical changes in South Africa to changes in Patricia and Looksmart’s relationship, the novel hints that South African racial relations may be essential to understanding that relationship’s breakdown.
Themes
Patricia was recently thinking about Looksmart. Searching through boxes in a guest bedroom, she noticed a fishing rod. Though the rod might have belonged to any number of boys who visited the farm, she examined the neatly knotted ribbons tying the rod’s holder together and realized they were Looksmart’s work. Then she recognized the rod as one she’d given him, which he’d only used once.
Patricia was able to identify the fishing rod as Looksmart’s based on the neatness of the ribbons attached, which demonstrates how familiar she was with him and how close their relationship was when he was a child.
Themes
Patricia asks whether Looksmart remembers catching his first fish and says she remembers “like it was yesterday.” When he repeats the phrase sarcastically, she recalls how they used to tease one another to show they cared because “their world seemed to permit little else: it didn’t even allow them to touch.” Yet Looksmart’s current sarcasm isn’t caring. Patricia reminds him she showed him how to use the rod in the front lawn and went to the dam with him. He claims not to remember.
Richard’s dementia has demonstrated how memory can fail dramatically. Here, Patricia and Looksmart’s differing memories about the fishing rod—she claims to remember it “like it was yesterday,” while he claims not to remember it at all—shows that even people with no cognitive impairment can remember things differently or fail to remember the same things. Recalling how she and Looksmart used teasing to show affection because their world “didn’t even allow them to touch,” Patricia reveals that apartheid racial relations constrained her quasi-maternal relationship with Looksmart even as she used humor to bond with him.
Themes
Patricia recounts how the fishhook got caught in Looksmart’s ear, among other places, but that he eventually caught a fish. As she remembers laughing with him, she wonders whether her memory is a combination of other trips with other boys: “Is it possible she has brought all her memories together into this one boy—the one boy who stood out?”
In calling Looksmart “the one boy who stood out,” Patricia betrays the depth of her maternal feelings for him. Her recognition that affection for him might have warped her memories suggests she may not be a reliable narrator of her own past.
Themes
Patricia begs Looksmart not to say he can’t remember. She describes how he decided to return the fish to the water. Looksmart tells Patricia he “would have wanted to eat that fish.” She protests he was “gentle” and “always wanting to please”; he replies: “Don’t you mean always wanting to please you?”
When Looksmart claims he “would have wanted to eat that fish,” he implies Patricia never knew him well—and perhaps that he suffered from food insecurity, something privileged Patricia might have been blind to. Looksmart’s remark that he “want[ed] to please” Patricia specifically suggests that he at one point returned her affection.
Themes
Beauty. Beauty approaches the car in the driveway. The car’s owner parked it where Patricia likes people to park, and he or she left the gate open—either the owner is unfamiliar with farms or knows the Wileys have sold their farm animals. When she looks into the car, its flashing lights seem to “give the car an air of importance, connecting it to places Beauty can barely imagine.” She leaves through the gate.
Looksmart’s car’s aura of “importance” and Beauty’s acknowledgment that she can “barely imagine” the places it’s been show the differences in economic status and social privilege between Beauty and Looksmart. Whereas Beauty has remained a domestic worker trapped on the Wileys’ farm, Looksmart—who also grew up on the farm—has used his education to become wealthy and privileged.
Themes
Beauty has noticed the houses being constructed on the property are built on the model of the Wileys’ house. She sleeps in what she thinks of as Richard’s room in the unfinished house where she and Bheki live. Bheki isn’t there—he often goes off alone since his son’s birth. People gossip that Bheki’s son is disabled due to “dark magic,” since his mother Phume’s father is “both a nyanga and a priest.” Beauty, suspicious of nyangas and church, disliked how Phume claimed the Wiley farm’s women were haunted by tokoloshes—hence their failure to bear live children. Phume’s father couldn’t cure her son.
Though Patricia is trying to get a fresh start by moving, the development company that bought the farm is replicating her house all across the farmland—symbolically suggesting how the past intrudes on the present. A nyanga is Zulu for a religious healer; tokoloshes are a kind of evil spirit in Zulu mythology. Beauty’s skepticism of Phume’s father suggests her lack of traditional Zulu or Christian religiosity.
Themes
Beauty wonders whether Bheki’s child’s disability has meaning and thinks maybe not. Maybe people’s fates are random, and people have to invent both meaning and “justice” for themselves.
At various points in the novel, characters try to discover objective truths and meanings in past events. Here, Beauty wonders whether meaning, truth, and justice aren’t just stories people invent to impose meaning on random events.
Themes
In her house, Beauty puts on an anorak she got from a “stable girl[] from England—one of the ones [Patricia] never liked to talk about.” When Beauty leaves and passes the Wileys’ house, she hears a man laugh and knows it’s not Richard, who’s bad at laughing.
The novel has already implied that Richard was unfaithful to Patricia; since Patricia “never liked to talk about” the stable girls, the reader may infer that Richard pursued these girls sexually. Beauty can immediately tell the laughing man isn’t Richard because Richard has a poor sense of humor. Since Patricia and Looksmart use humor for human connection and subtle emotional hostility, Richard’s humorlessness suggests his emotional and psychological crudity compared to his wife and Looksmart.
Themes
Beauty knows how to walk so Patricia can or can’t hear her. She walks silently toward the sitting room and listens. The man’s (Looksmart’s) voice she hears reminds her of a lawyer or judge from TV. When he says, “Doesn’t that mean always wanting to please you?”, Beauty realizes who it is but has “no time to think of Grace” before she walks into the room.
Beauty knows exactly how to walk to avoid Patricia’s notice, once more demonstrating how well the Wileys’ employees know the Wileys. That Looksmart’s voice reminds Beauty of someone important on TV, meanwhile, shows their radically different social statuses despite their shared past.
Themes
Patricia asks Beauty whether she’s found Richard. Beauty says she hasn’t. Suddenly, Looksmart speaks to Beauty in isiZulu. Beauty thinks he’s asking to be looked at, “no doubt expecting her to approve.” Thinking people from around the farm aren’t normally as “arrogant” as Looksmart or his mother, she recalls that they came to the farm after Looksmart’s father was imprisoned for something terrible.
Beauty thinks Looksmart is “arrogant” and resents his assumption that she’ll “approve” of him; internally, she responds by recalling Looksmart’s troubled family history—suggesting she believes Looksmart should keep his underprivileged past in mind and not suppose himself superior to her.
Themes
The thought of Looksmart, like the thought of Grace, makes Beauty want to vomit. She says she recognizes him. She notices him examining her body critically and reflects that they never liked each other. Looksmart asks whether that’s all she’ll say to him and comments to Patricia that she may be intimidated by his suit. Patricia thanks Beauty and tells her to go find Richard. Neither Looksmart nor Patricia is looking at Beauty anymore. Beauty thinks that if they did, they would perhaps see the “knowledge inside her eyes.” Thinking this, Beauty leaves.
Looksmart feels entitled to examine Beauty’s body critically, demonstrating how his male privilege influences his reactions. His comment about his suit intimidating Beauty also emphasizes his higher economic status. Beauty’s observation that Looksmart and Beauty fail to see the “knowledge inside her eyes” hints that the underprivileged Beauty has discovered something Looksmart and Patricia have overlooked due to their comparative privilege.
Themes
Patricia. After Looksmart left, Patricia felt listless and depressed. She asked Looksmart’s mother about him, but his mother avoided explaining anything. A couple years after Looksmart left, shortly after South Africa held “its first democratic elections,” Patricia commented to John—without knowing what she meant—that Looksmart’s behavior was a bad omen for South Africa. Yet Patricia largely stopped thinking about the mystery of Looksmart’s disappearance as time passed, and she hardly noticed when his mother also left without explanation around 2000.
Patricia’s depression after Looksmart left reveals her emotional investment in him. Yet her comment that his leaving was a bad omen for the country—a comment made after South Africa held “its first democratic elections,” that is, the first elections where people of all races could vote—suggests she sees his disappearance as symbolic of South African race relations. She seems to resent his independence and lack of ‘gratitude’—hinting that she thinks Black South African people should be dependent on and grateful to white people. Patricia’s remark thus betrays her paternalistic and racist attitude.
Themes
In the present, Patricia watches Looksmart nervously roam the room. She notes the contrast between his size and his behavior, which reminds her of an anxious schoolboy. When she asks him about his economic gains, he tells her he didn’t wear the suit for her. She mentions she’s leaving the house the next day, and he says that he knows she has sold the farm. When she expresses surprise at his knowledge, he tells her it’s his “business.”
Patricia knew Looksmart best when he was a child in school; those memories influence how she interprets his adult behavior. Yet the revelation that it’s his “business” to know about her selling the house shows that much has changed: Looksmart is not a schoolboy but a white-collar worker with social power.
Themes
Patricia recognizes Looksmart may be a threat to her, but he doesn’t scare her, because Patricia isn’t sure her life is worth any more than her old junk. Instead of being scared, she’s grieved by their changed relationship.
Patricia cares more that Looksmart lacks affection for her than that he might hurt her, suggesting both her deep desire for Looksmart’s love and her indifference to life.
Themes
Looksmart asks what Patricia intends to do. She tells him she’s moving back to her childhood home. When he asks whether her father is dead, she tells him yes, for about 50 years. After listening to her talk about the house in Durban, he asks whether she’ll be sad to leave the farm. When she tells him that “backward glances only crick the neck,” he replies that such a crick might be “exactly what the doctor orders.” She tells him it isn’t at her age—which seems to surprise him, as if he hadn’t considered her age before.
That Patricia is moving back to her childhood home hints that she wants a rebirth or second chance at life. When she repeats her claim that “backward glances only crick the neck,” she shows her indifference to the past and her desire to forget. When Looksmart responds that this painful “crick” might be “what the doctor orders,” he’s proposing a different principle: it’s important to remember even when memories are painful.
Themes
Patricia tells Looksmart more about Durban and how “magical” her “childhood things” there now seem to her. When Looksmart tells her he associates her with the farm, she informs him she’s not even from the region. He asks whether Richard will miss the farm, at which point she says Richard is sick. Happily, Looksmart asks whether he’s had a heart attack. Patricia says no—Richard’s losing his mind, and it’s “far too late to find it.” She muses that she and Looksmart often used to speak in a humorous tone about Richard without making an overt joke about him, since he was “a subject better laid to rest.”
Patricia imputes “magic[]” to her “childhood things,” again betraying her desire for rebirth and a second childhood. Looksmart’s pleasure at the idea of Richard having a heart attack implies bad blood between the two men, while Patricia’s musing that Richard is “a subject better laid to rest” through humor indicates how Patricia and Looksmart used to use humor not only to connect but also to skate past painful realities such as Patricia’s unhappy marriage.
Themes
Looksmart protests that though Patricia makes her situation sound bad, the Wileys must be rich. Patricia says they’re in debt. Her sale of ponies couldn’t make up for the losses associated with Richard’s animals. She concludes, nevertheless, that the Wileys “can’t complain.” Looksmart says that’s unusual. She points out that Looksmart seems successful, and everyone can find something to complain about. Looksmart replies: “Like getting old? Like being rich?”
Looksmart’s insistence that the Wileys are “rich,” even when Patricia reveals otherwise, suggests that his perception of Patricia is stuck in the past—he remembers her as economically and racially privileged and can’t incorporate new information about her debts into his old perception of her.
Themes
Patricia asks why Looksmart, with his future prospects, is bothering with the Wileys. In return, he asks whether she thinks the past is “unimportant.” She says it likely doesn’t “amount to much in the end.” Musing, she thinks that somewhere in her life, she took a wrong turn and misplaced her sense of self. Looksmart gives her a flabbergasted look. Suddenly unsure whether she’s been narrating her internal monologue, Patricia says: “Sorry, did I say something inappropriate?” When Looksmart tells her she doesn’t have to apologize, she questions whether she did.
Looksmart accuses Patricia of thinking the past is “unimportant”—implying he himself thinks it's very important. Patricia thinks the past doesn’t matter “in the end,” maybe suggesting that she thinks herself too old and near death to do anything about the past now. When Patricia difficult remembering reveals that she, like Richard, has begun to have memory problems.
Themes
Richard. Richard sees a woman (Beauty) coming. Though she isn’t his mother, he wants to call her Mother and ask what happened to the farm. Yet she’ll return him to “the bitch” (Patricia), so he hides while she calls him. Fleeing, he wets his pants—a common occurrence. He thinks “there is too much to keep track of” and privately acknowledges the farm’s deterioration is likely his fault, not Patricia’s. He even dropped the spade and can’t remember why he wanted it. Then he recalls Rachel and decides to dig her up without the spade, “like a dog.”
Richard’s desire to call Beauty “Mother” suggests a kind of rebirth, a return to infancy, through his memory loss. His incontinence also suggests infancy. Yet his realization that “there is too much to keep track of” shows that he vaguely remembers being a functioning adult and knows he shouldn’t be like this. His obsessive desire to dig up Rachel again emphasizes the emotional power of parent-child relationships. His decision to dig her up “like a dog,” meanwhile, suggests that though the Wileys sometimes treat their Black employees worse than dogs, it is Richard who is really animalistic.
Themes
Beauty. Beauty finds Bheki with the workmen around a fire in one of the half-built houses and asks him where Richard is in isiZulu. When Bheki acts embarrassed and dismissive, Beauty thinks it’s because the other men may perceive him as “a woman, a nurse.” Though ordinarily Beauty would retreat, she feels she can’t leave Patricia and Looksmart together—she understands why Looksmart has come “better than even Looksmart does.” In isiZulu, she tells Bheki that Looksmart is there and asks him to find Richard and hide him in her room. When Bheki asks why, she leaves without answering.
Beauty is the least privileged of the novel’s main characters. Though she and Bheki have the same racial and economic backgrounds, Bheki still treats her rudely because he wants to maintain male privilege and not be considered “a woman.” Yet the underprivileged Beauty knows more than the others: she understands “better than even Looksmart does” why he’s returned and seems aware of some conflict between Looksmart and Richard that Bheki doesn’t know about.
Themes
Looksmart. Looksmart tells Patricia that if the past doesn’t matter, “there are no consequences to people’s actions,” an idea he hates. He asks whether she feels any guilt about the past. When she doesn’t seem to catch what he’s referring to, he reflects that she’s ignorant. During previous periods of violence and social upheaval in South Africa, she only cared about Looksmart and the farm.
Looksmart suggests that only when we value the past can we ensure “people’s actions” have “consequences.” Together with his question about Patricia’s guilt, this suggestion implies Patricia has done something very wrong that she may not even remember. His reflection that she cared only about him and the farm during violent historical changes, meanwhile, suggests that her maternal love for Looksmart was insular and self-indulgent: it ignored the larger context of political and racial violence in which young Black Looksmart lived.
Themes
Patricia questions whether there’s such a thing as “a conscience about the past.” Looksmart accuses her of excusing herself very readily; he reflects that while she may be smarter than he is, he remembers more. He does remember catching the fish; he thinks of her teaching him to use the rod and “laughing at him like he was her toy, her toy monkey, with a battery up its arse.” At the time, he wanted to perform excellently to prove to her that he was better than other “natives.”
When Looksmart accuses Patricia of forgiving herself prematurely, he suggests that people need a good memory to have a functioning “conscience.” His own memories seem warped by self-hatred and internalized racism, however; he assumes that if Patricia was laughing, she must have been laughing “at him” and thinking of him as a “toy monkey,” one that needed to show superiority over the other “natives.” Moreover, that he lied reveals a larger problem with relying on individuals’ memories for accountability—not only are people’s own memories fallible, but people can lie about the past, too.
Themes
Looksmart tells Patricia he does remember the fish—Patricia told him to kill it with a rock. Patricia doubts his memory but suggest one ought to kill a fish quickly, for mercy. Looksmart laughs coldly and tells her that he’s a better fisherman now. Then he picks up the apple and knife from the table. When Patricia notes that his words sound threatening, he laughs again and says he has reasons not to threaten her: his family and his financial success, for example.
It isn’t clear whether Looksmart is lying about Patricia having told him to kill the fish or whether their memories differ. Either way, the passage emphasizes the unreliability of individuals’ memories and stories as a guide to truth about the past. Looksmart’s cold laughter at Patricia—in contrast with the affectionate teasing they shared before—shows how estranged they have become.
Themes
Looksmart asks whether Patricia wants to know how much his suit cost. When she says she doesn’t care, he describes how excellent his car is and how Patricia couldn’t imagine it, given her ancient car. “Like a fat toad, he wants to add, at the heart of my life.”
Dwelling on his expensive new car, Looksmart rubs Patricia’s nose in his new economic status and her economic decline. His inner description of Patricia’s car as “a fat toad” sitting “at the heart of [his] life” may indicate how his childhood perception of the Wileys’ white supremacy-based wealth warped his self-perception as a Black child. On the other hand, the novel may be foreshadowing some more specific revelation about the car’s role in past events.
Themes
Patricia asks what Looksmart wants. He replies: “Patience is rewarded at the end to those who wait.” Noticing the mistakes in his English, he’s glad—he wants to show Patricia he’s “indifferent to getting her language right. And it doesn’t even matter that this isn’t true.” Finally seeming scared, Patricia says Richard will return. Though Looksmart pretends not to care, he isn’t sure what to do and knows Richard owns guns. He peels the apple with the knife.
Knowing that Patricia arranged Looksmart’s education, Looksmart’s “indifferen[ce] to getting [Patricia’s] language right” suggests his wish to deny his past dependence on her. That “it doesn’t even matter that this isn’t true”—that Looksmart isn’t indifferent to his language usage—reveals that Looksmart may be less invested in getting to the truth than he claims. Looksmart’s repeated worries about Richard’s guns, meanwhile, hint again that Richard is a violent person.
Themes
When Patricia says she doesn’t know who Looksmart is now, he asks whether she’s changed. She gives him “that white person’s look, blank and faintly beaming, while inside she contemplates her long row of denigrating thoughts about him.” Looksmart discovered how to make this face by watching Patricia, though he has lacked the “courage” to use it on her. Patricia comments that South Africa has changed. When Looksmart asks her whether that makes her happy, she deflects the question by saying her reaction doesn’t matter—she says this in a way that suggests to Looksmart that she actually thinks her reaction matters quite a bit.
Looksmart learned from Patricia how to put on a “white person’s look,” suggesting she not only arranged his formal education but also taught him how to act privileged—to be dismissive and blind to those lower on the social ladder. Their short dialogue about how South Africa has changed hints that each character may be wondering whether economic or racial privilege matters more now. Who has more power, indebted white Patricia or rich Black Looksmart?
Themes
Patricia watches Looksmart peel the apple with the knife. When he asks whether she’s scared, she asks whether he wants her to be. He recognizes that he does—he wants her to be scared, and he himself wants to be hateful. Patricia asks what he wants her to be scared of. He replies: “What you have always been afraid of: the truth.” She echoes, “The truth?” Her tone suggests she doesn’t think the truth exists.
Looksmart’s behavior may be threatening, but his claim that he wants Patricia to fear “the truth”—not, say, murder—suggests he won’t physically harm her. In a previous scene, Beauty wondered whether meaning (and by implication, truth) were things human beings had to invent. In this scene, Looksmart implies that truth is objective while Patricia suggests it doesn’t that truth doesn’t exist.
Themes
Patricia. Patricia acknowledges to herself that there are things she could be scared of. She recalls a woman, Fiona Johnson, with whom she went to boarding school and who lived near the Wileys’. A week previous, some men invaded Fiona’s farm during her husband’s absence, raped her, and murdered her.
This passage emphasizes Patricia’s physical vulnerability as an elderly woman who lives in an isolated place; the description of Fiona Johnson’s violent end hints at the finality of death.
Themes
Patricia tells Looksmart she doesn’t recognize the child she cared for in him. Looksmart protests that he lived at the farm until he was 19. When Patricia questions whether a 19-year-old is a man, Looksmart says she “made [him] to be a man.” When she suggests that’s a good thing, he replies she isn’t understanding him. She says he’s being “perverse,” and he asks whether she’s calling him a “pervert.” Patricia protests and wonders why his English has deteriorated since his youth; she speculates he doesn’t require “good English” in his current “circles.”
Though Looksmart lived on the farm until he was 19, Patricia seems to remember him as a child—maybe due to her maternal feelings, maybe due to anti-Black racism, which sometimes infantilizes Black adults. Looksmart’s claim that Patricia “made [him] to be a man” hints that she forced him to grow up too soon. Her speculation that he doesn’t require “good English” in his current “circles,” meanwhile, reveals her racist assumption that a successful Black South African would have an uneducated social set.
Themes
Looksmart puts the apple on the mantel and the knife in his pocket, finding it “frightening” yet “alluring” that he could kill Patricia. He asks whether she recalls the clay figurines he sculpted for her. She claims to, but he thinks she’s lying. He tells her he used to feel “proud” seeing them on the mantel—at which point Patricia’s face changes. Looksmart thinks she’s remembering but might just be enjoying the thought of such figurines. He invents details about them breaking, which he doesn’t remember—he only remembers her accepting them and praising him like he was a “toy monkey with the battery up its arse.” He recounts that the figurines abruptly disappeared.
Looksmart is aware that he could stab Patricia to death. That he finds this idea “alluring” demonstrates how angry he is with her. The passage leaves ambiguous why he finds the idea “frightening”—maybe he’s afraid of legal consequences, or maybe he cares about Patricia despite his anger. His fabrications about the clay animals again demonstrate how lying complicates people’s ability to see the past clearly. Looksmart’s return to the image of himself as a “toy monkey” suggests he finds Patricia’s treatment of him dehumanizing in retrospect.
Themes
Patricia asks whether Looksmart still makes art. He laughs painfully and denies he made art—he just wanted to “impress” Patricia. She claims his abilities were “magical.” Her sudden tenderness toward him makes him wary—he doesn’t want her to perceive his childhood self in him; that will impede his “progress.”
Looksmart laughs not to connect with Patricia but to reject her attempt at connection—humor, in the novel, has conflicting functions. That young Looksmart wanted to “impress” Patricia suggests that he cared about her. In turn, Patricia uses the same word—“magical”—to describe Looksmart’s art that she used to describe her own happy childhood in Durban, which implies that, as a child, Looksmart brought to the adult Patricia a kind of childish joy. Looksmart’s worry that Patricia’s affection for him will impede his “progress” foreshadows that he has a goal in mind for their conversation.
Themes
Patricia ponders aloud where Richard is. When Looksmart asks why she married Richard, she doesn’t reply. Looksmart thinks she never talked enough about Richard. Out of nowhere, Looksmart asks whether she’ll offer him tea and cake. Though Patricia seems insulted that he is asking for tea at an inappropriate time, she tells him they have tea but no cake, just biscuits.
Looksmart is furious with Patricia, but his question about why she married Richard implies that Looksmart still thinks she’s too good for her husband—an opinion suggesting residual affection for her. Patricia’s nonresponse suggests there is a story behind her marriage that she doesn’t want to tell.
Themes
Patricia calls Beauty. Looksmart intuits that Patricia is avoiding “call[ing] out the name in her usual way.” Instead, Patricia is calling more respectfully. Looksmart insists Patricia do it her usual way, “like [she’s] calling one of [her] dogs.” When Patricia protests to him talking to her “like—”, he interrupts with, “Like what? […] Like a dog?” Again, he insists that Patricia do it her usual way.
To treat someone “like a dog” is to treat them as less than human. Here, dogs represent the dehumanizing way white people treat Black South African people. Looksmart hears Patricia’s usual tone with Beauty as dehumanizing and seems to suspect Patricia is changing her tone out of shame and affection for him. By insisting she call Beauty in “the usual way,” Looksmart forces Patricia to see her own racism and rejects her affection.
Themes
Patricia. Patricia calls out: “Beau-ty!”
The way Patricia’s dialogue is written—as a drawn-out call with a hyphen in the middle, “Beau-ty”—implies that Looksmart was right: Patricia does have a particular, dehumanizing way of calling Beauty.
Themes
Beauty. Beauty, entering the room, notes Patricia’s helpless demeanor. Patricia asks after Richard. Beauty says she hasn’t found him, thinking he shouldn’t go near the house. At Patricia’s nonreaction, Beauty wants to “shake” or “slap” her but feels “powerless to step in.” Looksmart asks about tea; to Beauty, he resembles a “predator.” Patricia asks Beauty to bring tea and biscuits. When Beauty points out that the biscuits have softened, Patricia tells her to bake them a little while.
Beauty’s thought that Richard shouldn’t go near the house again hints at some knowledge Beauty has about a possible violent conflict between Richard and Looksmart. Despite Beauty’s knowledge, she feels “powerless” to influence Patricia and sees Looksmart as a “predator”—emphasizing Beauty’s lack of privilege relative to the other two characters.
Themes
Looksmart. Looksmart internally compares Beauty and the rural poor to panhandlers in Johannesburg. He used to keep money in his car to give panhandlers “to appease his guilt.” Now his own thoughts distract him, so he doesn’t even see them as he drives around.
Cars represent unequal access to wealth. Looksmart used to feel “guilt” about his wealth in comparison to people like panhandlers, the rural poor, and Beauty, but now he has gotten used to driving around sealed off from people like them and thinks far less about economic inequality.
Themes
Looksmart tells Patricia that Beauty hasn’t changed. When he asks Patricia whether Beauty ever had children or a husband, Patricia says Beauty claims she isn’t interested in either. Sarcastically, he replies, “I wonder why.” He’s furious at Beauty for continuing to work for the Wileys after what happened to Grace. He knows Beauty was only 13—at most—at the time, but he thinks she should have left in the subsequent 25 years. When Patricia mentions that Beauty and Bheki are moving with the Wileys, Looksmart again replies sarcastically: “Well, isn’t that nice.”
Looksmart’s sarcastic “I wonder why” when Patricia says Beauty isn’t interested in a family implies Beauty is too ugly to get married. His thoughts reveal he’s angry at Beauty for still working for the Wileys. Looksmart seems not to have wondered whether Beauty, who didn’t get the educational opportunities he did, would be able to get a good job if she left the Wileys’ farm. In other words, he seems blind to the ways that his educational privilege have opened doors for him that remain closed to Beauty. Looksmart’s repeated sarcasm in this passage again demonstrates how humor can create distance between people.
Themes
Looksmart asks whether Patricia remembers Grace, Beauty’s prettier older sister. Patricia says Grace “was the girl from the dairy who died.” Looksmart questions whether Grace wasn’t, in fact, murdered. Patricia denies knowing what he means, though he believes she’s lying. She tells him the child she remembers wouldn’t act like this. He claims that she doesn’t know anything about him—not even his name. Patricia retorts that she attended his birth and recalls “the exact moment” his mother named him.
Here, the novel finally reveals who Grace was: Beauty’s sister, a former worker on the Wileys’ farm, who may have been murdered. Oddly, Looksmart and Patricia move quickly from discussing Grace to arguing over what Patricia remembers about Looksmart’s birth—a segue suggesting that memory will be important as they fight about what happened to Grace.
Themes
