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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dutch House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Memory, Inheritance, and the Past
Family Bonds
Home, Displacement, and Impermanence
Resentment and Forgiveness
Projection, Perception, and Reality
Summary
Analysis
When eight-year-old Danny and his 15-year-old sister, Maeve, learn from their housekeeper, Sandy, that their father (Cyril Conroy) is expecting a guest, they’re surprised—he rarely invites anyone to the Dutch House. In the drawing room, they meet Andrea, who is admiring the hanging portraits of the former homeowners, the VanHoebeeks. Another portrait, of a 10-year-old Maeve, hangs directly across from the VanHoebeeks. Upon introductions, Danny senses that Andrea is disappointed with him and Maeve—or perhaps intimidated by Maeve’s impressive height for her age.
The juxtaposition of Andrea’s interest in the VanHoebeek portraits to her disappointment in the Conroy children suggests an immediate preoccupation with the Dutch House itself, rather than the family who lives inside of it. Her reaction to Maeve’s height is just as revealing—though she is an adult, Andrea still perceives the teenaged Maeve as a potential threat. Danny’s instinctive read on Andrea’s reactions, meanwhile, foreshadows the tension that will come to define their relationship.
Active
Themes
Andrea is the first woman Mr. Conroy has dated since Danny and Maeve’s mother, Elna, left years earlier—with the exception of “Fluffy,” or Fiona, the children’s former nanny and housekeeper, whom he dated very briefly. Fluffy had lived and worked in the Dutch House long before Cyril bought it in 1946. Her parents worked for the VanHoebeeks, and she spent her childhood there. However, Danny and Maeve’s father eventually let Fluffy go after an accidental kitchen mishap, where she hit Danny in the face with a spoon while cooking and left him needing stitches.
Fluffy’s history with the Dutch House speaks to its role as an enduring space, one that persists beyond the lives of those who inhabit it. Unlike the Conroys, for whom the house is a possession, Fluffy's connection to it is generational—her parents served the VanHoebeeks, and she, in turn, serves the Conroys. This continuity suggests that the Dutch House functions less as a home and more as an institution, where people serve the house more than they ever truly own it.
Active
Themes
The VanHoebeeks commissioned the construction of the Dutch House after Mr. VanHoebeek amassed a fortune in cigarette sales during World War I. Despite its moniker, the three-story home isn’t stylistically “Dutch” but is named instead for its original owners. The VanHoebeeks built the house on 200 acres, but as the Great Depression eroded their wealth, they sold off the acreage bit by bit. After both VanHoebeeks passed away, the bank took possession of the house and everything inside, including the portraits of the VanHoebeek family, hung throughout the home.
Active
Themes
In the drawing room, Andrea remarks that there are so many windows in the home, anyone on the street could see inside. She suggests adding drapes. Years later, during 15-year-old Danny’s first spring break home from boarding school, Maeve drives them both to the Dutch House at dusk, parking across the street and watching. They smoke cigarettes as the lights come on, one by one. Noting how clearly they can see inside, Maeve muses that Andrea, too, must have once watched them from outside, before she ever stepped foot inside the house.
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