Tagged: Housefocus

House focus question

In the short story “House” by Jane Rule, has a unique type of humour, and many situations of irony that in which makes it more appealing to the reader. When wanting to fit in with society, it is usually the wife/girlfriend who wants to buy items that other people have and live in a house together as a happy family due to society’s outlook on modern life. Subsequently, this was not the case, instead of the female commonly wanting to “fit in,” it was in fact the husband, Harry, who wanted to live like a normal family. On pg. 23 it says that “Though Harry knew these flat lands were where they should begin, the way the rest of their friends, had ten years ago,” even when the family has agreed with him in looking at houses, he still compares them with his friends, and because they had those small houses on the flat lands, he does not seem that they are good enough for him. Now his friends were “moving up onto these hills, enjoying the view from large well-furnished rooms, from terraces with garden furniture,” which made Harry insecure of where he and his family were living cabin cruisers. It is amusing that as a family, they are not the type that has a lot of money like their friends, yet Harry does everything he can to be them; including the fact that he sold his boat to get some extra money in order to buy a house in “The Hills.” The short story is relative to particular families now-a-days, but also mostly students in school. Families want to live in a large house, with a swimming pool in their backyard because it is what celebrities have, which provides them with the popularity that they have. Especially the jealousy of students not only when in school, but also in what they do in their regular life, they go onto social media, and they see other people with clothing,vehicles etc. and they want to have what they have. Once Harry finally buys a house, the kids, Joey and Doll, start to tear down the wall since they did not like it being in the way, enclosing the room; Harry and Anna join them help destroy the wall. Harry then realizes that just because he does not live like his friends in a humungous house with a great view, it does not stop him from being a happy family, for the reason that living with a happy family is more important than anything else.