Structure

In the Dream House is divided into 5 parts, and consists of 146 very short chapters, ranging from a single sentence to five pages in length. The chapter titles are references to various tropes from literature, mythology, and pop culture, which Machado uses as different lenses through which to view her experience in an abusive relationship. For example, “Dream House as Romance Novel” consists of the author's memory of her girlfriend saying “I love you” (28) for the first time, while in “Dream House as Murder Mystery,” she imagines a scenario in which a detective is accusing the suspects in a murder, but skips over the woman from the Dream House, even as she pulls a knife from the dead body and puts it in her purse. Despite the use of the tropes that guide the book, the central narrative is still a fairly linear account of Machado's relationship with...