Speaking the Unspoken: Carmen Maria Machado's "In the Dream House" and Opening up Conversations about Abuse in Queer Relationships
/In the Dream House and Intimate Partner Violence
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In the Dream House is a haunting memoir about the intricacies of violence and abuse in queer relationships, a topic often not talked about. Same sex relationships are often glamourized and violence within them is usually swept under the rug. Any conversations about intimate partner violence are almost always centred around cishet individuals, where the man is the perpetrator and the woman the victim.
Lesbian relationships, specifically, are also prone to being touted as “easier” or “less trouble” according to women in cishet relationships. Ask any lesbian and they will almost certainly tell you they’ve heard it all before.
These stereotypes make it difficult to open up conversations of the abuse that happens in queer intimate relationships and makes it seem less important, or less frequent, than it is. It also minimizes the abuse that is spoken about and fuels the idea that queer intimate partner violence is not as bad as cishet intimate partner violence.
In her memoir, In the Dream House, Machado uncovers the issues within her own relationship and the complications of abuse and manipulation. She does this by inviting the reader into her relationship, and into a terrifying version of the house her and her partner shared. She shows how sudden and unexpected abuse can become. How any self-confidence is whittled away to self-doubt and shame. How your expectations can crumble around you even as you desperately try to keep things from falling apart.
Machado explores why people stay in toxic relationships and how she managed to break free from her own. She discusses this all while using poetic language and powerful metaphors. Not only is Machado’s In the Dream House an emotional story about the reality of queer intimate partner violence, but it is also a beautifully written masterpiece that effortlessly moves the reader with each turn of the page.
Who is Carmen Maria Machado?
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Machado is an American author that has written and published a variety of essays, short stories, critiques, novels and poetry. She received her MFA from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and has won many awards, such as the Lambda Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction, the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction and the Shirley Jackson Award to name a few.
Machado’s most well known works include her memoir, In the Dream House, her collection of short stories, Her Body and Other Parties and her graphic novel, The Low, Low Woods. Though she has also written many other pieces of work and has contributed to other essay collections and anthologies.
Machado has been inspired by a variety of authors, including Shirley Jackson, Joanna Russ, Gloria Naylor, Kelly Link and Sofia Samatar. Most of these writers produce work that is fantastical and horror focused, which is unsurprising considering Machado’s own work tends to reflect horror and the fantastic.
Carmen Maria Machado’s Contributions to the Queer Community, Culture and Writing in General
Machado unapologetically centres queer experiences within her works and creates opportunities to discuss difficult topics that aren’t always spoken about when people talk about queerness. The most notable example of this is the previously mentioned exploration of queer intimate partner violence in In the Dream House.
In a broader sense, she has also changed the way we think about memoir and storytelling with the unique layout and merging of genres in In the Dream House. She has expanded the potential that literature holds for both queer and cishet writers.
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Machado often focuses on the queerness of horror, while also acknowledging the genres problematic tendencies when looking at homophobia and racism throughout the history of horror. She contributed to the collection of essays, It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror, which explores what the horror “genre gives and takes from queer people.”
Machado is an integral part of the queer writing community. She has aided the community through her discussions of taboo and unexamined parts of queerness, the prominence of queerness within the horror genre and the unique way she writes and frames her works.
Jessica Fraser is a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College. She has also spent time studying English at Lakehead University and has taken many queer studies courses. She has written in a variety of different formats, such as poetry, short stories, essays, and research papers. She mainly writes fiction and the genres she focuses on are horror, sci-fi, and fantasy.
