Previous
52. Dream House as Inner Sanctum
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
Back in Iowa, the woman from the Dream House visits Machado at Halloween. She decides to dress up as a Dalek, which confuses Machado because the woman has always mocked nerdy things. On Halloween night, the woman’s costume isn’t ready in time and she gets angry, blaming Machado (who has decided to dress up as a Weeping Angel). They turn up late to the party and the woman’s costume is so clunky she can’t walk through the crowds easily. She leaves after an hour to walk home in costume. Machado follows her, thinking that this will make a good story one day.
Machado and the woman dress up as Doctor Who characters, which, on the surface, are tributes to lighthearted science fiction. However, the woman’s volatile nature turns her lighthearted costume into an object of tension and rage. Her reaction to slight inconveniences emphasizes her tendency to become aggressive when a situation is out of her control. Machado’s attitude that the evening will become a good story suggests that she tends to turn to writing and storytelling in order to process traumatic events.
Themes
When Machado catches up with the woman from the Dream House, she’s kicking the door of the house. She starts screaming at Machado, telling her she ruined the weekend. She keeps yelling as Machado washes the paint of her costume off her skin. When they get into bed together, she says she wants to have sex, but Machado says, “Maybe tomorrow.”
Though Machado has done, it seems, nothing to deliberately upset the woman, the woman still finds a way to blame her for her dissatisfaction. At the same time, though, by suggesting they have sex, the woman doesn’t seem to realize that her aggression might make Machado feel unsafe or unhappy.
Themes
