Housekeeping

Content Warning: This novel contains depictions of death by suicide, mental health conditions, and child abandonment. Characters in the novel engage in stereotypical depictions of nomadic or transient people and unhoused individuals.

The light shining from within houses during darkness demonstrates home and belonging to Ruthie and Lucille. This is first shown when the girls go out skating on the lake until dark when the weather is particularly bad. The children have already lost their grandmother and their mother, and they have been out skating on the lake that took both their grandfather and their mother, both of whose bodies lie at the bottom of the lake. In this way, the lake and its darkness symbolize loss and the permanence of loss. When the girls return home to their aunts, however, they find comfort in the lights in the houses. This light contrasts with the darkness of the lake and the night and shows home as an antidote or an opposite to the frailty of life and relationships and the permanence of death. Because of this, light represents comfort, belonging, and permanence.

Lights from windows are again discussed much later in the book when Sylvie and Ruthie are on the island and Ruthie considers loneliness. To her, lonely people are those who are outside watching people inside a lighted window. Those inside do not have to pay attention to those outside because they have each other. This is why, to Ruthie, there is a certain smugness about people who have a human companion. While lonely people can occasionally glance through these windows and watch those inside, this glimpse into the world of the un-lonely can be taken away at any time, as the people indoors can close their shades and keep the rest of the world out. Ruthie believes there is a degree of gloating in those who do not feel lonely.