In The Dream House By Carmen Maria Machado

In her memoir, “In the dream house”, Carmen Maria Machado argues that domestic abuse in queer relationships is overlooked and disregarded. Society has set up what the “ideal” relationship is. A straight man and woman. There is a stereotype that if there is abuse in a relationship, the man is the perpetrator and the woman is the victim. This has been the “typical” outlook on domestic abuse in relationships for centuries. Even the concept that the woman is the perpetrator and the victim is a man is obscured and not heard of. Machado acknowledges that queer people who suffered from abusive relationships are always put to the side and their stories are never heard. No one seems to care that they are victims of this act since they are not a heterosexual

She is incredibly transparent and says what she feels without sugarcoating anything. When I read her other essays, I noticed that she never really writes for someone in particular. Her main concern is not how the essay is perceived by the audience, she just writes what she feels, and maybe someone out there could connect with it, but that isn't always her main goal. This is why it isn’t surprising the way she starts off her memoir with the overture. She states, “I never read prologues. I find them tedious. If what the author has to say is so important, why relegate it to the paratext? What are they trying to hide?.” This quote perfectly describes the way she writes. Knowing the way Machado has lived in the past, it is understandable that she is sick of hiding. She grew up in a very strict Christian household and she always had to hide who she really was. In this quote, Machado states that there is no need for authors to have a prologue because that downgrades the message that the author is trying to send. Despite her claims of hating the use of prologues, Machado uses one right after, this transition also depicts her writing style, which in this case, is humorous. Machado claims that she never reads prologues because she finds them tedious. When she uses a prologue right after, she is giving the reader an option to read it or not. Although other authors use prologues to hide their messages, Machado is using it in a different way. She uses it to establish her point on queer abuse. Even if the audience reads it or not, her message on the silencing of queer abuse is still present without the prologue. Another way to think of it is like constructing a building, the prologue being the skeleton and her story and ideas being the foundation of the building, which is very prominent throughout her