Motifs in Carmen Machado’s In the Dream House. Literature & Language

Essay Instructions:

choose one motif to expand and use scholarly sources, google scholarly is fine. Use research on the motif/genre to answer how the motif/genre relates to Machado’s (the author) story? I will attach the prompt and a list of motifs.English 110
ESSAY #3: FAIRY TALES, MOTIFS, & GENRE—MAKING THE UNFAMILIAR FAMILIAR
Background: Memoir writers do more than just tell interesting stories about their own lives: they tell their stories in order to shed light on our common humanity. Even for the wildest of stories, their stories allow us to view the “other” as the “self,” and to consider our own stories.
Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House does this both in story and in craft: her book tells the true story of an emotionally abusive past relationship using the language of fairytales and the motifs that span them, like “Transformation to stone for breaking taboo” (84), “Ghost pulls bedclothing from sleeper” (124), and “Falling in love with person never seen” (77) in footnotes to her stories. For her chapter titles, she also labels some chapters as different genres, like Noir, Romance Novel, and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure. She pairs an unfamiliar narrative (a queer abusive relationship) with familiar structures and ideas (fairytale elements and genre expectations).
Goals: Your goal for this essay is to expand your knowledge of close reading of literary elements (essay #1) and analysis of broader themes and structures (essay #2) into an even broader scope: considering how this text interacts with patterns in the larger literary landscape.
The task:
1. Choose one motif or genre from our list to focus on
2. Expand your knowledge on that motif/genre with scholarly research using your library databases
3. Use your research on that motif/genre to answer the following question: What does your chosen motif/genre tell us about Machado’s story?

Task Steps 1-2: Brainstorming—Research
After you read and thoroughly annotate Machado’s book, explore your chosen motif/genre with research. Start by developing a research question. Here are some research questions to consider:
- What is the history of this motif/genre? What other stories does it appear in?
- What expectations do readers/viewers have of this motif/genre? (For example, do we expect stepmothers to always be evil? In the romance novel genre, do we always expect a happy ending?)
- What variations on this motif/genre exist? Do they exist in different cultures, different time periods, with genders changed, etc?
- What message(s) do those variations send?
Task Step 3.1: Brainstorming—Thesis
Your thesis should answer the question: What does your chosen motif/genre tell us about Machado’s story?
Here are some brainstorming questions to help you answer that question. You do not need to answer all these with your essay; they are just ways to help you jumpstart your thinking.
- How is your chosen motif/genre similar to Machado’s story (in this chapter and throughout the book)? Does it fall into stereotype/expectations?
- How is it different? Does it break the stereotype/expectations?
- What do those similarities/differences tell us about how Machado might view her own story?
- How is Machado’s story in conversation with this motif/genre more broadly?
Task Step 3.2: Brainstorming—Body paragraphs
If your thesis is your answer to the question “What does your chosen motif/genre tell us about Machado’s story?” your body paragraphs will all explain how the text demonstrates that your idea is true. You’ll still be doing that close reading we did in essays 1 and 2, just in the context of your chose motif/genre specifically.
Guess what? Those brainstorming questions above for your thesis apply to your body paragraphs as well. Again, you do not need to answer all of these—choose as many as you need
- How is your chosen motif/genre similar to Machado’s story (in this chapter and throughout the book)? Does it fall into stereotype/expectations?
- How is it different? Does it break the stereotype/expectations?
- What do those similarities/differences tell us about how Machado might view her own story?
- How is Machado’s story in conversation with this motif/genre more broadly?
Remember to use those literary elements we’ve discussed and your research to help you answer those questions.
Need help? Review our brainstorming notes, the homework/prewriting you did this unit, and make an appointment to visit with me during digital office hours! I’m happy to help.
Requirements
For this essay assignment, your paper should:
- Be a minimum of 1,500 words
- Include a clear, arguable thesis
- Include a minimum of one quote per body paragraph (ideally more!)
- Include a minimum of two sources in at least two body paragraphs: one must be scholarly, the other can be more informal. One can be one of the ones I provided (Bottigheimer, Lieberman, or Stone)
- Focus on analysis (so what?) over summary
- Demonstrate knowledge of sentence boundaries
- Demonstrate deliberate paragraphing choices
- Be thoroughly proofread
- Include a title (something other than “Essay #3)
- Use a 12-point, readable font
- Be double-spaced
- Include page numbers
Please also include the following information at the top left-hand corner of your first page
- Your name
- your instructor’s name
- the course name and section
- the essay assignment number
You can refer to the Essay Formatting section on page 5 of your syllabus if you have any questions. Keep scrolling to see your deadlines!
Deadline Checklist
Note: For now, I am keeping these the same as they are on the syllabus, assuming we will be back in in-person classes by this time. If not, I will update accordingly. The rough/final draft deadlines will likely stay the same or very similar, though.
Tuesday, 4/7: Decide on your chosen motif/genre
Monday, 4/13 : Annotated bibliography due (useful): Please follow the instructions for the annotated bibliography for at least two potential sources. One can be one of the sources I provided on Canvas (Bottigheimer, Lieberman, or Stone). You do not need to end up using these sources in your essay, but use this as a chance to help you with your thesis! Please upload your bibliography to Canvas by the end of the day on Monday, 4/13.
Thursday, 4/16: Rough Draft (required): Please upload the rough draft to Canvas by midnight on Thursday, 4/16. 800 words is required to get full credit (though the full 1,500 is also fine!).
Thursday, 4/23: Final Draft (required): The final draft is due before class on Thursday, 4/23. You must upload the essay to Canvas before class in order to receive a grade. Please also bring a hard copy to class.

Essay Sample Content Preview:

Name
Professor
Title
Date
Motifs in Carmen Machado’s In the Dream House
Motif: Taboo: not to speak about a certain happening (44)
In the Dream House is a book that Carmen Maria Machado wrote in response to the haunting past that she had experienced in her same-sex relationship with her first lover (James 1). She describes how she met her beloved girlfriend after having been in a series of unsuccessful relationships with men. Machado was in her late-20s when she met her mate. She was admitted at the Iowa Writer’s School while her mate, who was actually her first girlfriend, was a graduate from Harvard University. The two immediately began their relationship which ended up in Machado travelling as often as possible from Iowa to visit her girlfriend who lived in a small cabin in Bloomington, Indiana; which later turned out to be the Dream House (Mukherjee, p84). This paper assesses how the motif ‘Taboo: not to speak about a certain happening’ explains Machado’s story in the memoir: The Dream House.
The chosen motif in the memoir develops several themes such as cultural criticisms, queerness and violence and abuse among many others (James, p1). To express it more, the author employs tools such as symbolism, personal experiences, aphorisms, and vignettes. With lot of wittiness, Machado describes a subject which is both dark and awkward in a society where stereotyping is the order of the day (Brown, p32). For example, she says “there is no better pace to live peacefully than in the middle of dark mountains” (Machado, p42) as she referred to the risk, she was going to take by falling in trap of a relationship of the same sex despite being viewed as a taboo. Its results are both scary and traumatizing, not only emotionally but also psychologically and physically. As she speaks out for thousands of people who suffer in same-sex marriages, Machado also brings out the fear that most of these people have, especially when it comes to verbally expressing their experiences to the society (Mukherjee, p84). In the Dream House illustrates the reality of this motif in different ways that also help to build the plot and different themes of the memoir.
‘The Dream House’ exhibits the motif of ‘Taboo: not to speak about a certain happening’ throughout the story. First, there is the cultural aspect of the motif that presents certain happens as taboos (Brown, p32). The fact that Machado, a woman who has grown up in the Pennsylvanian community where, along with her fellow women, she had dated men, just shows that male-female relationship was the only acceptable for of sexual relationship that the society recognized (James, p1). The same element features in her description of her first same sex relationship as she states it to be her very first “women crushes could always pass you as they didn’t have the courage to face each other. The feelings could be seen in someone’s eyes after holding an arm over you as they had the appearance look of a small child buying something in a shop for the first time using her own money” (Machado, p66). For a society in which lesbianism is accepted, there would have been no need of emphasizing the fact that it was her fir...

Updated on January 26, 2024

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Motifs in Carmen Machado’s In the Dream House. Literature & Language

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