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Chapter 3
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
During Maeve’s freshman year at Barnard, Mr. Conroy marries Andrea in the drawing room of the Dutch House, beneath the VanHoebeeks’ “watchful eyes.” Because Andrea isn’t Catholic and their father is divorced, a judge officiates the ceremony. Years later, after Danny finishes his first year of medical school at Columbia, he and Maeve park outside the Dutch House, smoking cigarettes and talking. Danny wonders whether it’s possible to ever see the past clearly. Maeve, without hesitation, says that she can. As they talk, Mrs. Buchsbaum, their longtime neighbor from across the street, stops by to catch up. She mentions that Andrea doesn’t speak to the neighbors, but she pities Norma and Bright, who, at least, seem more considerate than their mother.
Andrea’s and Cyril’s wedding in the drawing room of the Dutch House places their marriage directly under the silent scrutiny of the VanHoebeeks, whose presence—through their portraits—is a reminder of the home’s enduring history. Danny’s later conversation with Maeve about the past suggests that his perspective has become clouded by nostalgia and uncertainty, but Maeve’s clarity implies that she believes she is more impervious to the influence of time. She has always known the truth, because her truth is the truth. Mrs. Buchsbaum’s remarks about Andrea, meanwhile, reinforce Andrea’s detachment from the wider world, her authority seemingly confined to the Dutch House alone.
Active
Themes
In the first months after Andrea moves into the Dutch House, with Maeve away at Barnard, Sandy and Jocelyn try to help Danny feel less lonely. One day, while reminiscing about Maeve, 11-year-old Danny learns that Sandy and Jocelyn are sisters themselves. As an adult, he looks back on this moment with shame—he’d known these women nearly his whole life and never paid enough attention to see they were sisters. He’s horrified that he was “asleep to the world” for so long. He felt this way at the time, too, though he didn’t yet know how to put the feeling into words.
Danny’s shame at not knowing such an important, obvious fact about the women he considers family signals a growing awareness of his own privilege. His upbringing shielded him from recognizing the quiet, essential roles others played in his life. In this moment, he finally begins to see beyond himself—and in doing so, he begins to grow up.
Active
Themes
Before Andrea moved into the Dutch House, Sandy and Jocelyn effortlessly handled everything the Conroy family could need, their longstanding operation smooth and efficient. Danny recalls their humor and energy filling the entire home with joy. But once Andrea moved in and began assigning nightly dinner menus and nitpicking every small imperfection in the housekeepers’ work, the home’s former warmth began to fade.
Active
Themes
Andrea gives Maeve’s bedroom to Norma and moves Maeve upstairs to the third-floor attic while she’s away at college in New York, arguing that she no longer truly lives in the Dutch House. Mr. Conroy initially rejects this idea, but Andrea persists, and he gives in. When Maeve returns home for Thanksgiving, Andrea informs her of the bedroom change. Danny realizes someone should have warned her ahead of time, but Maeve, though clearly hurt, takes the news in stride. Around this time, Danny “falls in love” with the portrait of a VanHoebeek relative, Julia, but he later learns she is actually a young Mrs. VanHoebeek—the same elderly woman whose portrait hangs in the drawing room.
Active
Themes
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