{"id":1020,"date":"2020-03-24T21:29:56","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T21:29:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/?p=1020"},"modified":"2020-04-02T16:43:19","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T16:43:19","slug":"a-new-approach-to-unraveling-abuse-in-carmen-maria-machados-in-the-dream-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/2020\/03\/24\/a-new-approach-to-unraveling-abuse-in-carmen-maria-machados-in-the-dream-house\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Approach to Unraveling Abuse in Carmen Maria Machado\u2019s In the Dream House"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interweaving narrative, metaphor, and reflection with overarching questions and social theory, Carmen Maria Machado<\/a>\u2019s memoir, In the Dream House<\/em>, is an account of Machado\u2019s harrowing experience in an abusive relationship. More than that, In the Dream House<\/em> examines the unique circumstances that arise from abusive queer relationships compared to abusive heteronormative ones. She tackles the mental gymnastics that victims of domestic abuse have to perform just to survive and the ways she has grappled with coming to terms with her situation. There\u2019s also the added layer of manipulation introduced by the pressures of upholding the pristine image of the model minority. She navigates that pressure in such a way that any reader\u2014queer or not\u2014will understand the feelings she lays bare. And although the relationship central to In the Dream House <\/em>is woman-with-woman, Machado makes sure to clarify that hers is only one of countless accounts, each one valid in its own right.<\/p>\n

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From Amazon<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

In the Dream House<\/em> sets the tone immediately, beginning with the cover. The illustration of the house on the front cover evokes the fear implicit in abusive relationships. It has a hole knocked out of the bricks, vines crawling up the dilapidated eaves, and a backdrop of stormy cloud cover behind the house. Three epigraphs interspersed throughout the first few pages read like the opening credits to a somber movie. The dedication page is at once an offer of help and an ominous warning: \u201cIf you need this book, it is for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the surrogate credits, Machado gets to the point. She includes only as much exposition as is necessary. This includes an explanation of the Dream House, a place as real as it is a metaphor for the abusive relationship; her life in Iowa City pre-Dream House; and her first exposures to lesbianism. That\u2019s all that comes before Machado introduces the main antagonist. Or rather than \u201cmain antagonist,\u201d perhaps I should say the person who could be considered by many readers, including myself, to be the main antagonist, and by others, perhaps including Machado, just one of many \u201churt people who hurt people\u201d (232). This person is never named. She\u2019s referred to only by she\/her pronouns or as \u201cthe woman in the Dream House.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, wrapped up with all this exposition is Machado\u2019s introduction of the main character. The main character is her<\/em>. But the main character is also you<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The second-person perspective stands out to me as the single most important element of this narrative. Machado starts in first-person, then shifts into second-person when the relationship with the woman in the Dream House begins. Aside from a few moments of personal reflection outside of the confines of the relationship\u2019s story, the narration remains in second-person until the relationship ends, and even a little beyond that. It\u2019s a useful way to contain the anecdotal moments.<\/p>\n

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From The New Yorker<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s also a useful way of putting the reader in Machado\u2019s shoes. When someone in an abusive relationship brings it up to a person they trust, it\u2019s so often met with a response along the lines of \u201cwhy did you stay\u201d\/\u201chow could you let someone treat you like that\u201d\/\u201cI would never let someone do that to me\u201d\/whatever else people seem to think is an appropriate response to someone confiding in them. This is especially the case for relationships where the abuser uses emotionally or mentally manipulative tactics instead of physical ones, as was the case for Machado.<\/p>\n

The second-person narration cuts out that middle step. Machado forces the reader to experience a pseudo-firsthand account of the horrors she had to endure during her relationship\u2014but she also develops the very real love and affection that was mutually present between her (you<\/em>) and the woman in the Dream House.<\/p>\n

This development has the effect of giving the reader a personal establishment of the relationship from the real beginning, not just when the abuse started. It\u2019s easy to boil down an abusive relationship to the abuse and call that the only takeaway. In reality, though, relationships are never that one-dimensional. In the first fifty or so pages of In the Dream House<\/em>, the reader experiences the intoxicating headiness of an early relationship. You feel the joy of seeing your person after a week apart, the flutter when you catch them staring at you with love in their eyes, the warmth of waking up next to them in the morning. It\u2019s all there and it all feels like a fairytale.<\/p>\n

Like a fairytale, though, there\u2019s a twist coming. And like so many fairytales don\u2019t have happy endings, neither does this relationship.<\/p>\n

Another intriguing aspect of In the Dream House <\/em>is the many references to Stith Thompson\u2019s Motif-Index of Folk-Literature<\/em>. The footnotes sprinkled throughout the text draw parallels between Machado\u2019s experiences and fairytale motifs, drawing attention to how unbelievable some of those experiences seem\u2014but that\u2019s part of what makes abuse so horrifying. For example, Machado describes a conversation between you and the woman in the Dream House after she dismisses the idea of going to therapy:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018You threw things at me,\u2019 you say. \u2018You chased me. You destroyed everything around me. You have no memory of any of it. Doesn\u2019t that alarm you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Thompson\u2019s motif-index is referenced in a footnote during the exchange: \u201cType C411.1, Taboo: Asking for reason of an unusual action\u201d (150).<\/p>\n

And suddenly, fairytales don\u2019t seem so outrageous after all.<\/p>\n

My only qualm with the references to the motif-index were that I would have liked to see them included earlier. The first one wasn\u2019t used until page 21, and while that may seem pretty early, I believe the motif-index should have been established as a device from the very beginning. At first, I was unsure whether they would continue to be used beyond the first few references, but in that regard, Machado did not disappoint; the footnotes can be found at least every few sections. Some citations made more of a mental leap than others. The ones that made the least sense to me were few and far between, though, so I was mostly happy with\u2014and often surprised by, in a good way\u2014the ones I read.<\/p>\n

By the end of In the Dream House<\/em>, some of the ideas Machado introduces and then returns to over the course of the book become repetitive. In one instance, an entire section toward the end, while beautifully written, is essentially a briefer restatement of what the story has already shown the reader. Often, revisited ideas are further developed each time Machado brings them up again. For the most part, then, repetitiveness isn\u2019t actually an issue. Because of the rare instance of tedious writing, though, those moments stand out even more. That\u2019s what makes them so easy to identify.<\/p>\n

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Machado is now in a happy, healthy relationship. Pictured here with her wife. From Twitter<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

On the other hand, the book\u2019s prose is gorgeous. The writing is familiar, yet unique; the most poetic sentences make me feel like I\u2019ve finally remembered something I didn\u2019t know I forgot. As someone who has struggled through an abusive queer relationship, Machado puts to words feelings I\u2019ve never before had the language to express. My favorite line is on page 55: \u201cBy the time you\u2019ve wound out of the mountains and gotten back to a freeway, the bite of the fight has sweetened; whiskey unraveled by ice.\u201d And the sickly kindness of this line on page 129, which comes after screaming and death threats and a break-in through the locked bathroom door, stuck with me long after I\u2019d finished reading, like the hull of a popcorn kernel lodged in the back of my throat: \u201c\u2018Why are you crying?\u2019 she asks in a voice so sweet your heart splits open like a peach.\u2019\u201d This is what it means to be ensnared in the jaws of an abusive relationship. Machado captures it perfectly.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

About a quarter of the way into the book, you meet the woman in the Dream House\u2019s parents for the first time. Her father\u2019s behavior and the interactions between her parents are one of the first indicators of the dangers to come in the relationship. As the reader, it hurts to see her parents, especially her father, and realize she was conditioned to be the way she is. It hurts because it makes you see the cycle and realize that it\u2019s not entirely her fault even though you want so badly to throw all the blame on her.<\/p>\n

But later, Machado recalls an aunt of hers, who \u201cwas known to fly into unpredictable rages\u201d that left her crying, afraid, or some mixture of the two (a footnote in this section aptly refers to this relation as \u201ccruel aunt,\u201d Type S72 from the motif-index) (70). Machado\u2019s mother explained away her aunt\u2019s behavior as being caused by the pain of endometriosis. Machado comments that later, when she was also diagnosed with endometriosis, Machado \u201cmanaged to get through the worst of it without screaming at small children, or anyone for that matter\u201d (71). This despite the fact that she endured torment from her aunt for years.<\/p>\n

The narrator\u2019s response to the \u201ccruel aunt\u201d shows us that, ultimately, it\u2019s we ourselves who are in charge of our fates. We control how we react to strenuous situations and how we treat the people around us. No matter how sympathetic the woman in the Dream House\u2019s parents may make her seem, Machado herself is a reminder that we hold the reins in our hands. In the Dream House<\/em> tells us we can come out on the other side of a difficult experience and decide what to make of it. Let that be a message of hope to all its readers, and let its readers not forget: If you need this book, it is for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interweaving narrative, metaphor, and reflection with overarching questions and social theory, Carmen Maria Machado\u2019s memoir, In the Dream House, is an account of Machado\u2019s harrowing experience in an abusive relationship. More than that, In the Dream House examines the unique circumstances that arise from abusive queer relationships compared to abusive heteronormative ones. She tackles the Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7],"tags":[177,99,175,102,176,180,179,103,178,143,51],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-reviews","tag-abusive-relationship","tag-book-review","tag-carmen-maria-machado","tag-english-344","tag-in-the-dream-house","tag-lgbtq","tag-memoir","tag-public-writing","tag-queer","tag-review","tag-umich"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1026,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/english-344-001\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}