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
The woman from the Dream House sometimes says she loves Machado and wishes she could trust her. She sends Machado cruel messages, and it seems like she wants to dissect her.
This is the third chapter with this title, and it follows the pattern set up by the first two iterations—a pattern of becoming increasingly threatening and uncomfortable. Machado’s realization that the relationship hinges on violence and cruelty is a slow unfolding, not a dramatic epiphany.