NameDr. Gregory House
CompanyPrinceton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital
CategoryThe Academy Oscar Award
Executive SummaryHouse was born in 1959. One possible birthday is June 11, 1959 (according to his hospital admission bracelet in No Reason) which is also actor Hugh Laurie's actual birth date. Another is May 15, 1959, according to his Driver License in Two Stories and the sheet of information he sticks to his bathroom wall in After Hours in case of his death. [1] (And to make it even more confusing, he gets birthday wishes in The Socratic Method broadcasted in December). He is the child of Blythe House, a housewife who was married to Marine pilot John House. At the same time that John was overseas, Blythe was also having an affair with Thomas Bell whom House believed was his biological father due to the physical characteristics they share, but this turned out to be false.
Young House. Love Is Blind
As his father served on active duty through most of House's childhood and adolescence, House has lived in a variety of countries, such as Egypt, the Philippines and Japan. As a result, House is able to speak Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, is able to read at least some Hindi and also claims to read Portuguese. Additionally, he has some knowledge of several others. For example, he used French, Yiddish, and Latin phrases several times, but it is unknown how much of these languages he knows.
House was obviously a bright child, a mixed blessing as his harshly demanding father and enabling mother obviously had high hopes for him. He cultivated a variety of interests, such as chemistry, playing the piano and guitar. However, it appears that his isolation from people his age and his poor relationship with his parents led House to become something of a loner. He had little to no friends growing up which probably contributed to his anti-social behavior. It is implied that he frequently rebelled against his father and was punished as a result with both intense physical discomfort and emotional isolation.
At the age of 12, realizing that his father had been away during his conception, House deduced that John was not his biological father. House confronted John with this information, and as a result they stopped speaking to one another for an entire summer, communicating only through hand-written notes. Their relationship, however, returned to normal following this brief spat (although there is sufficient evidence presented throughout the series that points towards John's abuse of a young House). John treated House coldly, likely due to a lack of understanding between the two. It could b
DescriptionEquipped with a dry and acerbic sense of humor, House is enigmatic and conceals many facets of his personality with a veneer of sarcasm. He appears and sometimes himself claims to be narcissistic (although he also shows many signs of self-contempt which would be impossible for an actual narcissist) and appears to have a disdain for most people, leading some to label him "a misanthrope." He has contempt for most societal institutions, including feminism and religion. House is an atheist and it is implied that he is nihilistic. These traits make him something of a byronic hero. Despite his cynicism, he does seem to care about his colleagues to a certain extent and while considering them "idiots" is able to sometimes put aside his pride and apologize when he has offended them in a particularly sardonic fashion. House uses his flippancy to conceal his affection toward his colleagues, and denies it to the extent that he himself sometimes forgets it. House is a total maverick and has stated that he frequents prostitutes. In one episode, his best friend Dr. Wilson states that House could have Asperger's Syndrome, but later tells House that he only wishes he had Asperger's so he could get away with more in life. Wilson has also told House that his obsession with solving cases has nothing to do with saving lives but that while "some doctors have a Messianic complex, House has a Rubik's complex", that is to say, he's more concerned with figuring out what is wrong with his patients than he is with saving their lives. The latter he does simply because it's his job. This is shown when he sometimes tries to diagnose patients after they're dead, such as in the episode "97 Seconds". However, there have been more than one occasion in which he put at risk his career, freedom and sometimes even his life to save a patient, leaving open how much he doesn't care about his patients' lives.
Occasionally, House can display the same sort of hypocrisy he decries in others, such as his derision for Cuddy when she had the naming ceremony for her daughter. A particularly egregious example would be his acquisition of a handgun after being shot by Moriarty, while stating to Masters that the Second Amendment is the part of the Constitution which says that people have the right to be stupid. He also apparently has inherited John House's service automatic and Mameluke sword. No Reason, Euphoria (Part 1), Last Temptation, Perils of Paranoia
House's willingness to take risks and experiment with his patients extends to his own health. Beyond his use of Vicodin, he has frequently used himself as a guinea pig for drugs and medical tests. Some of these tests are aimed at curing his leg pain, while others are to help his patients or satisfy his own curiosity. This disregard for his own well-being horrifies Wilson and Cuddy, who see it as an expression of his self-destructive impulses.