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32. Dream House as Stoner Comedy
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 and the woman from the Dream House drive to Machado’s parents’ house. The woman is high and smells of weed. Machado is furious, especially because she has to drive this stretch all by herself. The woman tells her she doesn’t know what it’s like to be judged by someone else’s parents as that person’s first girlfriend. When they arrive, Machado’s parents are “very nice” to the woman.
The woman from the Dream House expresses her lack of confidence in the form of defensiveness, seeming to prioritize her own feelings of security over Machado’s. It’s clear that she’s had unpleasant experiences before because of how other people judge her queer identity, which highlights how someone’s history of harm can lead them to harm other people.
Themes
