Significance of Isolated Farmhouse

The isolated farmhouse, which Felix rents from a local family after losing his job, is symbolic of the enchanted island on which Prospero and Miranda live during the course of The Tempest. Although the farmhouse is not magic in the same way as the island, it is nevertheless associated with supernatural occurrences, most notably Felix’s delusion that he can see and hear Miranda inside the house and playing and singing around the farmland outside. Further to this, at the end of the novel when Felix discovers that the family has unexpectedly abandoned the farm, he muses that they disappeared almost as if they were only ever spirits who had been sent there to serve a purpose for him but had left now that that purpose has been fulfilled.