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89. Dream House as Undead
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
The night the woman from the Dream House chased Machado into the bathroom, Machado hoped she wouldn’t know how to take the doorknob out. In that moment, the bathroom was her sanctuary, though after that she felt anxious every time she was in there. In an interview after the trial, Debra Reid said she just wanted to get her own apartment and turn her “own little doorknob”—something Machado frequently thinks about.
Here, Machado is remembering how her parents removed the doorknob from her bedroom door when she was a child. This memory echoes in her own experience of abuse and in Debra’s, too, highlighting the fleeting nature of safety. In moments of fear, a doorknob—representing security—becomes a precious luxury.
Themes
