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33. Dream House as Meet the Parents
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
In D.C., Machado introduces the woman from the Dream House to her college friends. She realizes the Boston friend has told them about the woman’s unkindness and some of them don’t seem to trust her. They go to a wedding of one of the friends and Machado admires the woman’s joyful dancing. The next day, the woman tells Machado that the friends hate her and are jealous. The bride walks past and looks concerned, but Machado is relieved when she keeps walking without intervening.
Machado’s friends clearly want to protect and care for her—apparently, more than Machado seems to be caring for herself. Machado still finds the woman attractive and enjoys being around her, but it’s a pleasure she can’t easily express to other people in her life: she’d rather her friends ignored the warning signs of the relationship.
Themes
