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145. Dream House as Ending
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 writes a large portion of this book on a residence in rural Oregon. The landscape is desolate, inhabited by predatorial animals. At one point, a forest fire breaks out on a nearby mountain. Machado goes to the library in town, where the librarian tells her that deer know how to escape fires, while bulls and cows don’t. The next morning, a young buck appears near Machado’s window, and eventually another one joins it. When Machado’s foot creaks on a floorboard, the bucks dart away. A few days after that, Machado goes for a moonlit hike. She feels a sense of clarity in the landscape and a deep comfort in her body. She wishes she could tell her younger self that she was going to be all right.
Machado is highly attuned to the natural world and often sees her own mindset reflected in the flora and fauna surrounding her. In this case, the anxious bucks represent her heightened ability to sense danger, even when that danger is subtle enough to be imperceptible to others. In this moment, Machado’s comfort in her body—after having struggled to unite her mind and her physical existence in the aftermath of her abusive relationship—is a sign that she’s beginning to heal from her trauma.
Themes
