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90. Dream House as Sanctuary
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in In the Dream House, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Queer Visibility
Christianity and Shame
Abuse, Trauma, and Healing
Storytelling, Responsibility, and Freedom
Summary
Analysis
Finding love with the woman from the Dream House in a homophobic world felt like climbing onto a floating piece of driftwood after a shipwreck, which meant that Machado felt not just heartbroken, but betrayed, when the woman tried to push her off it.
The image of a shipwreck demonstrates how desperate Machado was to find love and security as a queer woman, which highlights the insecurity of a marginalized existence—any companionship seems, at least at first, to be a miracle.
Themes
