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53. Dream House as House in Iowa
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 tries to analyze the woman from the Dream House’s cold attitude. She thinks about whether the woman is unhappy, and she wants to know how to make her happy. When she expresses these thoughts to the woman, the woman interprets them in a specific way and claims that Machado meant what she didn’t mean.
Machado remains empathetic toward the woman, despite having been threatened and berated several times by her. The woman’s emotional manipulation is present once again in her ability to interpret Machado’s comments in a particular, ungenerous way.
Themes
