The House Next Door Summary

The culture of the 1970’s that can be seen in The House Next Door by Anne Rivers Siddons was focused around the suburban neighborhood, which began to increase in popularity after World War II. The soldiers had come home and only wanted a simple life, reminiscent of American dream. In my research, I found that this image of the American dream followed strict gender roles and life in the suburban neighborhood, which was only accessable to white people. This meant that the American dream was inaccessible to any other races, including Jews. In my initial reading of the book it was hard for me to see why the author chose to include racist jokes as well as jokes about Hitler, but in doing my research I found that a lot of it had to do with the nature of exclusivity within suburbia. When I reread the passage “So there’s nothing in the world I need, except maybe a genie or a few slaves or something.’ She laughed, a stiff, social little laugh” (Siddons 231), I saw it as more of a critique than when I had first read it, because in my research I saw how bad the situation was back then. When Susan said this, she said this as a woman living in an exclusively white community in the south, who was married to a Jewish man, and joking about slavery. At first

Suburban neighborhoods were built for white people, but the house was sold to someone who was “trying to pass for Episcopalian” (Siddons 232) instead of a family who actually was. Therefore, the fact that the house was sold to a Jewish family shows how badly the house’s reputation was damaged by the Harralsons and the Sheehans. Whereas Pie and Buddy fit the southern stereotype very well, the Greenes did not. Norman was half Jewish and Susan had had a child out of wedlock with another