Danny knows his father isn't exactly the easiest man to understand. This is a potent quote for anyone who has ever wished they'd tried harder to get to know someone in their life-which is, most likely, most of us. The meaning of this is hard to pin down precisely, but it seems that Danny has realized what his mother knew from the second she saw the house: it is too big, too imposing, too decorative, too heavy, and too rooted in the past to be the kind of thing in which one can truly live.Īfter so many years I thought less about his unwillingness to disclose and more about how stupid I'd been not to try harder. Danny, 87Īs a child, Danny loved the Dutch House without reservation, but even though he continues to love it for a long time after he is kicked out, he has an epiphany on the day of his father's funeral: the Dutch House really is impossible. Human nature leads us to continue to do things that are bad for us even when we know they are bad in this sense, Danny and Maeve are relatable characters because most readers also have experienced something similar. Both siblings know this but cannot act any differently at this time.
This hate is consuming and it limits their ability to move forward. As Danny says, they're nourishing their hate: they're reminding themselves of what they had, what they lost, how terrible Andrea was, and how their father was taken away from them in more ways than one. Danny, 73ĭanny and Maeve aren't stupid: they know that sitting in front of the Dutch House is not good for them. the more we kept up with our hate, the more we were forever doomed to live out our lives in a parked car on VanHoebeek Street. It will take a lot of growth in Danny to start to come to terms with who his mother was and why she did not like the house at all. He cannot comprehend how anyone would not like the house and see it as the majestic edifice it was. It represents his father, his sister, and his childhood. For him, the house is a palace, a playground, and a museum. He's lived his whole life there and has no negative memories of Elna leaving or Maeve getting sick. And what he does notice-in this case, the house-is filtered through his own subjectivity. He doesn't notice a lot of things around him, one specific example being that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters. In his youth, Danny is like any child in that he is not particularly aware of any reality other than his own. Hate the dining-room ceiling, sure, but the entire house? There was no better house.
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