In the Dream House: 120. Dream House as the Queen and the Squid Summary & Analysis

 Machado tells a story she “learned from a squid.” In it, a lonely queen requests her counselors to find her a companion. They bring her a squid. She’s delighted, as is the squid. But soon the queen gets bored and turns cruel, sometimes locking the squid outside as it yearns for water. The squid slips into a mop bucket and wheels herself around, eventually finding a room that smells terrible, in which she sees something horrific. She hurriedly wheels herself back to the queen’s room.

Later, the squid sees the queen with a bear and knows she can’t compare. She runs away. The queen writes her a letter, saying that just because she now loves a bear, it doesn’t mean her time with the squid meant nothing. The squid doesn’t reply, so the queen writes another letter which contains profuse apologies for failing the squid. She begs the squid to return to her. The squid writes many draft letters in reply, and after finally finishing a suitable letter, she sends it and leaves town. The letter reads, “Your words are very pretty [but] they cannot obscure the simple fact that I have seen your zoo.”