Like a House on Fire

by

Cate Kennedy

The narrator Character Analysis

The unnamed narrator is a husband, the father of three children, and the story’s protagonist. After an accident at work almost sixteen weeks ago, he is still recovering from a serious back injury. He is running out of sick pay and as a result, his wife Claire has been working extra shifts at the hospital, where she is a nurse. In Claire’s absence, the narrator has assumed the childcare responsibilities at home. His inability to provide financial stability for his family and his perception that he’s failing to adequately care for his children Ben, Sam, and Evie, cause him to feel insecure and ashamed. Accustomed to maintaining careful order in every element of his life—managing his team at work and dutifully completing domestic tasks at home—the injury has thrown the narrator into an unfamiliar state of chaos. As he struggles to accept his new role in family life—or adapt to his messy household surroundings—the narrator charts the growing tension between him and his wife.

The narrator Quotes in Like a House on Fire

The Like a House on Fire quotes below are all either spoken by The narrator or refer to The narrator. 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

The Rotary guy [...] gives me a look he reserves for shirkers, layabouts, vandals and those destroying the social fabric by refusing to pull their weight.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

“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:

That motion, swinging and lifting my arm to full stretch, feels like someone has taken a big ceramic shard out of the box—a remnant bit of shepherd, maybe, or a shattered piece of camel—and is stabbing it into the base of my spine.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Christmas Nativity Scene
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

Some days it feels like that's my entire identity focused there in one single space between two injured segments of a bone puzzle, shrunk down to one locus of existence, and seized there.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 77
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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The narrator Quotes in Like a House on Fire

The Like a House on Fire quotes below are all either spoken by The narrator or refer to The narrator. 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

The Rotary guy [...] gives me a look he reserves for shirkers, layabouts, vandals and those destroying the social fabric by refusing to pull their weight.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

“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:

That motion, swinging and lifting my arm to full stretch, feels like someone has taken a big ceramic shard out of the box—a remnant bit of shepherd, maybe, or a shattered piece of camel—and is stabbing it into the base of my spine.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: The Christmas Nativity Scene
Page Number: 75
Explanation and Analysis:

Some days it feels like that's my entire identity focused there in one single space between two injured segments of a bone puzzle, shrunk down to one locus of existence, and seized there.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker)
Page Number: 77
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: