Like a House on Fire

by

Cate Kennedy

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Like a House on Fire makes teaching easy.

Claire Character Analysis

Claire is a foil to the narrator, her husband. While he requires neatness, order, and control, Claire prefers to embrace the messy and unpredictable side of life. Claire is exhausted from working extra shifts at the hospital to make ends meet, on top of tending to her husband once she’s home. Increasingly frustrated with her husband’s slow recovery, she resents his complaints about the household mess and clutter. The narrator observes a new side to Claire throughout the course of his injury; when she is caring for him, she assumes a strict, professional persona, which he feels creates further distance between them.

Claire Quotes in Like a House on Fire

The Like a House on Fire quotes below are all either spoken by Claire or refer to Claire. 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:
Humiliation and Masculinity Theme Icon
).
Like A House on Fire Quotes

“Every sheep and cow, every adoring shepherd, broken. Only the baby Jesus in his crib, one leg raised in that classic nappy-changing pose, remains miraculously unscathed.”

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: The Christmas Nativity Scene
Page Number: 73-4
Explanation and Analysis:

Footsteps, muttering, the sound of fingers stirring through ceramic debris. A tightly constrained hiss of frustration and fury. You get good at listening to sounds in a household when you're prone; it gets so you can almost hear a head shaking in pained disbelief, or distant teeth grinding in the silence.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

A long while has passed since we'd made jokes […] I can't remember the last time my wife touched me with hands that were anything except neutral and businesslike […] It was a side to her I was seeing for the first time, this professional, acquired distance. At our house, in our script, Claire was the slapdash one.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Look,' she says, 'either tell Sam to get it out, or forget about it. Just give the martyrdom and control freakery a rest.”

Related Characters: Claire (speaker), The narrator, Sam
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:

Listening to the two of us, you'd never believe that we used to get on like a house on fire, that even after we had the kids, occasionally we'd stay up late, just talking. But now that I think of it, a house on fire is a perfect description for what seems to be happening now: these flickering small resentments licking their way up into the wall cavities; this faint, acrid smell of smoke. And suddenly, before you know it, everything threatening to go roaring out of control […] And what am I? The guy who can't get the firetruck started? The one turning and turning the creaking tap, knowing the tank is draining empty, the one with the taste of ash in his mouth and all this black and brittle aftermath?

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: A House on Fire
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

I look at her, feeling that small heat build between us. Our breaths fuelling it, close to the ground. This is how you do it, I think, stick by careful stick over the ashes, oxygen and fuel, a controlled burn.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: A House on Fire
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis:
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Claire Quotes in Like a House on Fire

The Like a House on Fire quotes below are all either spoken by Claire or refer to Claire. 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:
Humiliation and Masculinity Theme Icon
).
Like A House on Fire Quotes

“Every sheep and cow, every adoring shepherd, broken. Only the baby Jesus in his crib, one leg raised in that classic nappy-changing pose, remains miraculously unscathed.”

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: The Christmas Nativity Scene
Page Number: 73-4
Explanation and Analysis:

Footsteps, muttering, the sound of fingers stirring through ceramic debris. A tightly constrained hiss of frustration and fury. You get good at listening to sounds in a household when you're prone; it gets so you can almost hear a head shaking in pained disbelief, or distant teeth grinding in the silence.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Page Number: 77
Explanation and Analysis:

A long while has passed since we'd made jokes […] I can't remember the last time my wife touched me with hands that were anything except neutral and businesslike […] It was a side to her I was seeing for the first time, this professional, acquired distance. At our house, in our script, Claire was the slapdash one.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

“Look,' she says, 'either tell Sam to get it out, or forget about it. Just give the martyrdom and control freakery a rest.”

Related Characters: Claire (speaker), The narrator, Sam
Page Number: 83
Explanation and Analysis:

Listening to the two of us, you'd never believe that we used to get on like a house on fire, that even after we had the kids, occasionally we'd stay up late, just talking. But now that I think of it, a house on fire is a perfect description for what seems to be happening now: these flickering small resentments licking their way up into the wall cavities; this faint, acrid smell of smoke. And suddenly, before you know it, everything threatening to go roaring out of control […] And what am I? The guy who can't get the firetruck started? The one turning and turning the creaking tap, knowing the tank is draining empty, the one with the taste of ash in his mouth and all this black and brittle aftermath?

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: A House on Fire
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

I look at her, feeling that small heat build between us. Our breaths fuelling it, close to the ground. This is how you do it, I think, stick by careful stick over the ashes, oxygen and fuel, a controlled burn.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), Claire
Related Symbols: A House on Fire
Page Number: 91
Explanation and Analysis: