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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
Machado flies to Cuba with her brother to visit their ancestral home, Santa Clara. She realizes that Santa Clara is the sister city of Bloomington and wonders at the coincidence. While there, Machado wanders the streets, imagining that she’s wandering around the map of Bloomington. Her brother tells her the story of her grandfather telling an old, white Cuban man to “go fuck himself,” and she wishes she had used this phrase herself, years earlier.
The coincidental detail that Machado’s ancestral home is the sister city to Bloomington, the site of the Dream House, makes Machado’s story feel strangely fated. Bloomington reverberates in her memory and is still vivid in her mind.
Themes
