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 paraphrases queer women activists: “If you want to be my friend you must […] first, forget I am a lesbian. And second, never forget I am a lesbian.” Heteronormative society has historically found it difficult to understand lesbians or label their behavior, including when British Parliament voted down a bill that would have criminalized female same-sex “gross indecency” because, if women couldn’t penetrate each other, they couldn’t legally validate their behavior as sex.
The quote Machado shares highlights the duality of living a marginalized existence. One’s identity is central to their existence, so it’s important to share it with others—but it’s also something people can use against them, singling them out and dehumanizing them because of what might be seen as abnormal.
Themes
Machado refers to an event in the late 1800s in which Alice Mitchell slit her lover Freda Ward’s throat because Ward tried to end their relationship. Faced with the dilemma of whether to label Alice a madwoman or a monster, the jury chose the former.
Queer communities have been discussing sexual abuse in lesbian relationships since the 1980s, but it only became a legal matter in 1989 when Annette Green killed her abusive female partner. Green was one of the first queer people to use “battered woman syndrome” in her defense. The judge only allowed her to use such a defense if she referred to it as “battered person syndrome.”
The judge’s opinion that Green should use the phrase “battered person syndrome,” even though she was a woman, robbed her of her identity for the convenience of preserving the judge’s own worldview. It’s a reminder of the heteronormative expectations ingrained in the legal system, at least in the late 1980s.
Themes
Machado points out the difference between how straight, usually white women and queer women are treated in these kinds of cases. For example, Debra Reid was the only Black woman and only lesbian amongst the group of imprisoned women who made up the Framingham Eight. Her lawyers tried their best to present her as “the woman” in her abusive relationship—the one who carried out the domestic tasks. The media coverage surrounding the case conspicuously erases Debra.
Even within a community, there are rifts and inequalities. Machado demonstrates that not every story of abuse is the same, and not every woman experiences the same aftermath. The treatment and erasure of Debra suggests that if someone doesn’t fit within the societal norms, their story is less palatable to the general public, harder to empathize with, and easier to erase.
Themes
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Machado says that the abuse Debra, Annette, and Freda experienced is “far beyond” what happened to her, but it’s important for her to tell her story, because otherwise history will only include the most “salacious” stories. Furthermore, because there’s no legal protection against verbal or psychological abuse, victims of this kind of abuse are often unable to find language for what they’ve experienced or what it means.
Machado is determined to fill a small part of the archival silence with her own story, and in this way, to deconstruct stereotypes and archetypes that harmfully pigeonhole marginalized people. By finding language for her own story, she can also help other people find language for theirs.
Themes
Machado thinks back to a crush she had when she was a teenager. At the time, she couldn’t work out what her feelings meant. Why did she want to kiss that girl? Eventually, she figured out that it was a crush. But the same thing happened when she felt afraid of the woman from the Dream House: she didn’t know what that feeling meant.
Machado suggests that language can help people understand their experiences while they’re happening, whether those situations are pleasurable, like a crush, or dangerous, like abuse. Language is a comfort, a tool, or even a weapon.
Themes
