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99. Dream House as Five Lights
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
Back in the Dream House timeline, Machado uses the word “evil” once, but it doesn’t feel quite right. In the past, other people—doctors, bullies, her parents—have made her feel powerless. They didn’t revel in her pain, and she was also able to fight back against them. The word “sick” seems more appropriate for what Machado wants to describe, but it reminds her too much of when her friend told her she was “disordered” for being queer.
Machado wrestles with terms and their definitions. It’s highly important to her to find the word that best describes the woman from the Dream House because she knows that a single word has the power to hurt and condemn someone.
Themes
