home

Home is a concept that is thought of very differently by all. Some define home as a sanctuary, a place to be alone, or to seek comfort in, while others define home as a place of problems, and a place that plagues and nags them, reminding them of constant financial or family tied worries. The idea of home has been ever changing throughout the years, and has changed drastically since the 1950’s, when the idea of home included the idea of a nuclear family and a perfect household. In modern times, many of us don’t consider home a place for family or happy times as people did in earlier years. Working with Habitat for Humanity and reading novels such as The Crying of Lot 49 and The Stepford Wives takes us into very different concepts of home during today’s day and age when compared to previous times.


In The Stepford Wives, we get a look at Suburbia, and what it means to be a suburban housewife in a highly satirical story. The role of a stepford wives is basically to please her husband in any way she can, while doing hours of housework like a machine, thus allowing them to be “the perfect wife.” The main character of this story is Joanna, who is part of a “nuclear family” which consists of a husband, wife, and two children. The women in Stepford have no real lives outside of their husbands and their homes. Their homes are the place they feel safest in, because it is what they were designed to do; cook, clean, iron, etc.


In The Crying of Lot 49 home is not really a place of sanctuary as it is portrayed in The Stepford Wives. For example, when Oedipa comes home and sees that her husband has just been on LSD, I can’t imagine she would feel very comfortable with that situation, let alone want to be in a house with him. The home most likely feels like a sorrowful place for her, and marks another notch in her life where she feels alone, and disappointed.


Finally, when it comes to volunteering at Habitat for Humanity, it saddens me to see how destroyed some of the houses we were working on were. The conditions were not great, and the previous owners had obviously failed to upkeep the places. However, habitat for humanity is an amazing organization, dedicated to helping make homes look their best, and be liveable for people who need them. I can only hope that these people can find some good meaning in the word home after moving in to one of these places.


In conclusion, home is defined as many different things thourghout history. Everyone’s views of home are different, as some people view it as a nice place, while others find it to be somewhat scary. Either way, home is an important factor in life, as well as in writing a novel. It gives you s sense of how the characters really are.