Open Access
The Houses That Cried
Author(s) -
Joan Annette Parnell
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
european journal of life writing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2211-243X
DOI - 10.5463/ejlw.1.29
Subject(s) - happiness , architecture , sign (mathematics) , narrative , history , front (military) , photography , metaphysics , art history , visual arts , art , psychology , literature , archaeology , geography , philosophy , social psychology , mathematical analysis , mathematics , epistemology , meteorology
This essay revisits physically and metaphysically the houses of the author's childhood, in an attempt to discover and recover a sense of self from the architecture of her past. From suburban houses in the Eastern and South Western suburbs of Sydney, to the Gothic turrets of Dalwood Children’s Home on the Northern Beaches (which, in the 1930s and 1940s was advertised as ‘The House on Happiness Hill’) and to a foster home now found to have a Child Safety House sign on the front veranda, the discrepancies of time and memory are conjured up in narrative, and hand-drawn image and photography