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61. Dream House as Déjà Vu
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
Years after her relationship with the woman from the Dream House, Machado writes part of this book in her Philadelphia apartment. Before she and her wife moved in, they lived in a horrible building nearby, infested with mice and cockroaches. Though she hated killing the mice, she was prudent about catching the cockroaches. But one day the cockroach infestation moved into the clock of their microwave and Machado began to kill them with “detached practicality,” with her bare hands.
This chapter’s title reinforces the idea that the Dream House isn’t only the house in which the woman lives—it’s a concept that roams across place and time, spreading dread and violence. This moment also illustrates that violence can begin in a measured way, but it has the tendency to expand and explode.
Themes
