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105. Dream House as L’appel du Vide
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
In the present, Machado remembers watching a film version of the opera Carmen in middle school. Because Machado shared a name with the title character, her classmates repeatedly asked her if she, like the character, was “a prostitute who didn’t shave under her arms.” In the opera, Carmen’s lover stabs her when she tries to leave, then publicly mourns her as if he didn’t kill her.
Machado’s middle-school experience demonstrates how people will latch onto points of reference in literature and pop culture in order to try to understand the people and phenomena around them—often resulting in harmful and inaccurate conclusions.
Themes
