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The Wileys’ House
In The Dream House, dogs symbolize how relations between Black and white South Africans have and haven’t changed after apartheid’s gradual repeal, which began in the early 1990s. Dogs first appear in the novel when white South African farm owner Patricia Wiley’s ancient Rottweiler, Ethunzini, begins barking at the milkman. Both Patricia and her Black domestic employee Beauty ignore the barking. Their indifference to the noisy dog symbolizes how some South Africans treat ongoing social inequality between white and Black people after apartheid—an inequality that Patricia and Grace’s employer-employee relationship embodies—as background noise, a fact not worthy of discussion. Yet not all characters demonstrate this indifference. When Looksmart, a Black man who grew up on the Wileys’ farm during apartheid, visits Patricia, he tells her Ethunzini is “still the same dog” as Chloe, an unrelated Rottweiler that belonged to Patricia’s husband Richard and killed Beauty’s sister Grace during apartheid. By equating Ethunzini with Chloe, Looksmart implicitly argues that post-apartheid South African racial relations aren’t so different than they were under apartheid. Then Looksmart reveals that Richard intentionally set Chloe on Grace to kill her, thus partially proving the point: privileged white Richard has never faced justice for his apartheid-era murder of poor Black Grace, even though apartheid is over.
The novel’s dog symbolism ends ambiguously. Near the novel’s end, Patricia asks her Black employee Bheki to euthanize Ethunzini. As Bheki is about to shoot Ethunzini, the dog looks imploringly at Patricia, who turns away—perhaps suggesting her disgust and shame at South African white supremacy as it has played out in her own life. Bheki thinks the dog doesn’t understand how times have changed: they no longer live in a country where “a man like Bheki will always come second to a dog.” Bheki euthanizes Ethunzini, the Wileys’ last living dog, just before Looksmart receives the keys to the Wileys’ house; both gestures suggest Black people have gained some social power in contemporary South Africa that apartheid denied them. Yet Ethunzini is literally not the dog that killed Grace, and Richard never faces justice for setting Chloe on her—two facts that suggest Ethunzini’s euthanasia in the present cannot rectify the violent racism of the past.
Dogs Quotes in The Dream House
The The Dream House quotes below all refer to the symbol of Dogs. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3
Quotes
“The first thing I saw on getting back from boarding school,” he says, “was a black puppy, playing in the garden, chewing a rubber ball to bits. The second was Grace, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. As our love grew, that dog in the garden was growing too. My love and your fear, they grew together. And now, I can no longer separate them. When I think of one, I see the other. I see that double thing, that creature—the beast. Circling the garden, dripping blood.”
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“No one knows what I saw.”
Beauty seems to say this with the knowledge that this statement, for the first time, is no longer true: two others now know what she saw. What she saw no longer belongs to her: it will become a part of the general story that is used to define her sister.
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Chapter 5
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As they labour along the road, the image of the black puppy keeps finding its way back into her head: the way it would run along the fence of the dog-run after the girls going toward the dairy, stumbling over its paws, while she sat back and laughed at it.
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Dogs Symbol Timeline in The Dream House
The timeline below shows where the symbol Dogs appears in The Dream House. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...Patricia’s walker, the Rottweiler Ethunzini barks outside—but the women ignore the noise, as the elderly dog barks at all sorts of things.
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...yet ordered Ethunzini shot, a grave has been dug. Patricia, who has always owned many dogs, resolved to sell the farm a year and a half earlier, when her final Chihuahua...
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...“with all of them inside it.” Richard appears in pajamas and demands to bring the dogs to his father’s house. Patricia finds this funny. She reminds Richard his father died. Noticing...
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The interior of Patricia’s 25-year-old Mercedes-Benz car has been badly damaged by her dogs—Patricia often leaves them in the back seat to “protect” the Mercedes while she and Bheki...
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...she look at Rachel’s grave before checking where the animals used to be kept. The dog Ethunzini barks. Beauty, looking out the window, tells Patricia there’s a car outside. After Beauty...
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Chapter 2
...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...Then he recalls Rachel and decides to dig her up without the spade, “like a dog.”
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...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? […]...
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Chapter 3
Looksmart says when he saw Richard’s dog chasing Grace, he couldn’t trust his eyes. Then he perceived Grace as “half a woman,...
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...time she died. She was angry at Grace because Richard told her Grace “provoked” the dog into biting and sprinted away, exciting its violent instincts. She wants Looksmart to “admit” Patricia...
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Patricia says Looksmart claimed he was present for the dog attack, though she doesn’t remember him there. Beauty, hoping Patricia will be content with “a...
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Patricia asks whether Beauty saw the dog attack Grace. When Beauty says she was at the dairy, Patricia replies, “So you didn’t...
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...used to love visiting newborn Looksmart. She would walk to Looksmart’s mother’s hut with the dogs, and they would wait outside while Patricia visited. But after about three weeks, Patricia sensed...
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...saw Beauty, she screamed, escaped Richard, and ran away. When she ran, Richard unchained the dog Chloe and sicced her on Grace. Patricia asks whether Looksmart is accusing Richard of murder....
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...sex with Grace, given his other affairs, but denies Looksmart can say Richard sicced the dog on Grace without “the facts.” When Looksmart asks about these “facts,” Patricia claims Grace was...
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...the dairy while she “hid in the house.” Patricia claims she was locking up the dog or trying to find Richard, but she didn’t care about the car seats. When Looksmart...
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Looksmart. Looksmart tells Patricia he first saw both the dog as a puppy and Grace upon returning from school. His relationship with Grace and the...
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...off. Patricia asks whether Grace escaped. Beauty agrees. When Patricia asks whether Richard sicced the dog on Grace, Beauty begins “panting like a dog” or like “a woman trying to give...
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Chapter 4
...she doesn’t know what he wants, he tells her he wants her to “remember that dog” the way he does and not be able to retire to Durban “without a backward...
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Looksmart asks how Richard dealt with the stillbirth. Patricia—recalling how Richard “crept away, a lame dog,” from her gaze—says he didn’t deal with it well. When Looksmart asks how she dealt...
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...being sure she’d like it. Feeling suddenly dour, she says they could walk the old dog Ethunzini and play fetch. Looksmart, “seeming to understand her exactly,” laughs and says they could...
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Bheki. Bheki sees Looksmart exit the house and catch sight of the dog, Ethunzini. Though Looksmart seems “ready to attack or be attacked,” the dog simply looks at...
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...Patricia and Richard stay silent, listening to Looksmart leave. Patricia notes it’s unusual that the dog doesn’t make any noise at Looksmart’s passage.
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...means, he asks whether she doesn’t “actually know.” Patricia says he killed Grace with the dog. When Richard asks whether “that’s all,” Patricia asks if he feels guilty. He sneers at...
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Chapter 5
Bheki. Bheki, standing with Beauty at Rachel’s grave, sees something has dug up a dog’s grave nearby. Carefully, Bheki moves the soil off Rachel’s coffin. He muses that he’s aware...
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...Looksmart has changed how she sees her past. She remembers laughing at a black puppy dog that tried to chase the dairy girls.
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...the baby because abortion violated her cultural and religious beliefs. That’s when Richard sicced the dog on her. Horrified, Patricia asks why Beauty didn’t say this to Looksmart. Beauty says Looksmart...
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...to one another. When Beauty collects Richard, Bheki approaches the veranda carrying a gun. The dog growls, and Bheki thinks it’s worried for Patricia when it should be worried for itself....
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