Carmen Maria Machado’s Father Character Analysis in In the Dream House

Machado’s father infuriates during childhood by suggesting that women are generally emotionally sensitive people. This is a stereotype she considers false, though seems to prove it, which infuriates her further. Machado’s father says something else that sticks with Machado: he advises her that if she doesn’t know the answer to a test question, she should still write down everything she knows about the topic. This is the attitude Machado takes while writing this memoir.

Carmen Maria Machado’s Father Quotes in In the Dream House

The In the Dream House quotes below are all either spoken by Carmen Maria Machado’s Father or refer to Carmen Maria Machado’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

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Where I had doubt, I’d fill the space with what I remembered, what I knew to be true, what I could say. I waxed poetic on those scenes in a novel I could visualize clearly, instead of striving to evoke the ones I couldn’t.

[…]

Let it never be said I didn’t try.

Related Characters: Carmen Maria Machado (speaker), Carmen Maria Machado’s Father

Page Number and Citation: 147

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