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36. Dream House as Bluebeard
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 has always fixated on limits—the edges and endings of things, like the sand right at the edge of the tide. She remembers going diving, feeling breathless and panicked as she watched the guide diving deeper into the nothingness, and having to surface for air.
Though the memory of going diving is far removed from the relationship that’s central to this memoir, Machado recalls it to imply that her feeling of testing the limits of a scary situation is one she also felt in her relationship.
Themes
