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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 says that the Dream House was a haunted house because it was a place where bad things happened. The air within it was filled with the dread and violence Machado experienced there. After a while there, Machado realized that she was that house’s ghost.
Machado’s view of herself as the ghost suggests that her time in the Dream House rendered her all but powerless, unable to change her physical circumstances, and trapped in the same location.
Themes
