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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 stays at the Dream House for weeks over Christmas. She can sense that it’s a bad decision to be there, but she can’t resist the pleasure of physical intimacy with the woman from the Dream House. In the final week of break, Machado goes bowling with the woman and her writer friends. The woman has agreed to be the sober driver, so Machado drinks several beers while the woman sips on one. She gestures for Machado to sit on her lap, which she does, but when the woman starts running her hands up her body, she pushes them away. When she tries again, Machado can sense she’s angry.
Machado is constantly caught between her desire for the woman from the Dream House, and her fear of what might happen if the woman’s mood changes unfavorably. At the bowling alley, the woman demonstrates her lack of respect for Machado’s physical boundaries, responding angrily, rather than apologetically, to Machado’s unspoken request not to be touched.
Themes
The woman from the Dream House grips Machado’s arms and tells her she hates her. She sounds drunk even though she’s only had one beer. Machado gets anxious and wonders how they’ll get home. One of the woman’s friends tells Machado he’s sorry and gives her some cash for a cab. The woman mutters a slew of insults to Machado the whole way home.
The woman’s failure to hold up her end of the bargain as the sober driver demonstrates that Machado’s safety is less important to her than the chance to freely enjoy herself. Even when Machado takes action to ensure they get home safely, the woman abuses her. She can’t avoid danger, whether it’s in the form of her partner driving drunk or in the form of verbal abuse.
Themes
Back at the Dream House, Machado makes her bed on the couch, but the woman from the Dream House kneels down beside her and starts screaming right into her ear. Machado runs to the other side of the room. The woman starts throwing Machado’s possessions at her. Machado runs to the bathroom and locks the door. The woman throws herself against the door, screaming. After a while, she goes quiet. Machado goes back to the couch where the woman is sitting, her face blank. She asks Machado why she looks so upset. Machado sees that night as the one in which the “gun” appears on the mantelpiece.
The woman throwing Machado’s possessions at her, rather than her own, is an outward demonstration of the way she constantly manipulates Machado to denigrate and blame herself. Machado’s use of the gun image, in reference to Chekhov’s gun—the dramatic principle that a gun introduced in the first act will eventually go off—highlights the tension and violence inherent to living in the Dream House.
Themes
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