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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 phrases this chapter as if it’s a word problem in math class. In the problem, there’s a couple who agrees to a long-distance relationship. The woman in Iowa spends the whole second year of grad school driving back and forth to Indiana. The problem asks how long it takes the woman (Machado) to realize she’s wasted half her time in grad school driving long-distance only for her girlfriend (the woman from the Dream House) to yell at her for five days.
Machado sets up this word problem as though the reader—who assumes the part of the problem solver—will have to come up with a figure of miles or gallons of gas. But in the end, she subverts that expectation to emphasize her own ignorance. The problem wasn’t the miles or the cost of gas—it was the fact that she ignored the danger and misery of her situation.
Themes
