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Allie’s Paintings
The sprawling plantation home that Noah spends a year of his life renovating is a symbol of the ways in which a belief in love and destiny can guide a person’s life. Noah once showed the shabby old house to Allie during their summer of love in 1932, vowing that he’d one day fix it up and live in it. As an adult, Noah uses the first large sum of money he comes into in order to buy the house and the surrounding property. He works on the house and the land around it day in and day out, often pressing on until midnight or later. Whether or not he admits it to himself, Noah is building a house in which he hopes he can one day build a life with Allie. Allie is the “ghost” of Noah’s past, and as he completes work on the house, he turns to hard work to outrun her memory while also building a life that continues to hold space for the possibility that Allie will return to him. The house is a physical emblem of Noah’s desire to live a life in which reuniting with his true love is his fate. In building the house, Noah imagines each day he toils that he can help destiny along by creating a place suffused with the pent-up love he’s had for Allie for over 14 years. The house, constructed around a singular hope for the fulfillment of his destiny—a destiny which centers around loving and providing for Allie, and which ultimately comes true—represents how a belief in love and fate can shape and define a person’s life.
Noah’s House Quotes in The Notebook
The The Notebook quotes below all refer to the symbol of Noah’s House. 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 2
Quotes
It would work out for him, he knew; it always did. Besides, thinking about money usually bored him. Early on, he'd learned to enjoy simple things, things that couldn't be bought, and he had a hard time understanding people who felt otherwise.
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"So that's the ghost you been running from." When asked what he meant, Gus said, "You know, the ghost, the memory. I been watchin' you, workin' day and night, slavin' so hard you barely have time to catch your breath. People do that for three reasons. Either they crazy, or stupid, or tryin' to forget. And with you, I knew you was tryin' to forget. I just didn't know what. […] This girl you been tellin' me about was your first love. And no matter what you do, she'll stay with you forever."
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Chapter 3
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"You did a wonderful job restoring it. It looks perfect, just like I knew it would someday."
[Noah] turned his head in the same direction as hers while he wondered about the small talk and what she was holding back.
“Thanks, that's nice of you. It was quite a project, though. I don't know if I would do it again."
"Of course you would," she said. [Allie] knew exactly how he felt about this place.
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"It's unbelievable, Noah. How long did the restoration take?"
He looked up from the last bag he was unpacking. "Almost a year."
"Did you do it yourself?"
[…] "I started that way. But it was just too much. It would have taken years, and so I ended up hiring some people . . . actually a lot of people. But even with them, it was still a lot of work, and most of the time I didn't stop until past midnight."
"Why'd you work so hard?"
Ghosts, he wanted to say, but didn't.
"I don't know. Just wanted to finish, I guess.”
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Get the entire The Notebook LitChart as a printable PDF.
Noah’s House Symbol Timeline in The Notebook
The timeline below shows where the symbol Noah’s House appears in The Notebook. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 2: Ghosts
It is October of 1946. Noah Calhoun sits on the wrap-around porch of his plantation-style house in his hometown of New Bern, North Carolina, watching the sun set over the nearby...
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...looks up at the stars and thinks absentmindedly about the funds he’s spent restoring the house and the surrounding property—he knows he’ll be out of money soon and will need to...
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...girl is “the ghost [Noah has] been running from” by working so hard on the house. Gus warned Noah that no matter how hard he worked or how desperately he tried...
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...share of the business. Noah returned to New Bern and immediately bought an old plantation house he’d once promised Allie he’d fix up one day. Within a year, his father was...
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Noah reels in his fishing line and heads up to the house. His neighbor Martha Shaw, a war widow and single mother whom Noah often helps out...
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As Allie arrives at the house, she is taken aback by how dramatically different it looks. She spots Noah on the...
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Chapter 3: Reunion
...cannot stave off the sensation. She finds herself thinking that she has at last come home. Allie and Noah embrace wordlessly and hold each other. Allie begins to cry. She laughs...
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...know how to find the words. Noah’s three-legged dog, Clem, comes rushing out of the house and excitedly greets Allie. When Allie remarks upon the dog’s missing leg, Noah says that...
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As dark falls, Noah and Allie head back up to the house. While Noah starts on dinner Allie wanders around the house, touring its halls and many...
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...with the extra hands, he ended up working each evening until midnight to finish the house. Allie asks why he pushed himself so hard, and Noah struggles not to reply, “Ghosts.”...
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...the summer they shared together. Allie recalls the night they snuck over to this very house—she came home so late that her parents reprimanded her for spending time with Noah. Allie...
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Chapter 7: Swans and Storms
...soaked-through dress. After leaving the canoe at the dock, Allie and Noah head for the house hand in hand. Allie thinks about sleeping with Noah and wishes she could feel his...
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Chapter 12: Winter for Two
Noah and Allie have lived at the Creekside Extended Care Facility, a nursing home, for more than three years. They came here after boarding up their beloved house in...
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