Dream House as Perpetuity in Physical Linguistics

Dream House as Perpetuity in Physical Linguistics
3 May, 2025

            Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir titled In the Dream House is without a doubt a masterpiece in experimentation of form. Spanning 144 mini-chapters, the memoir illustrates the author’s unsung story of domestic abuse within a queer relationship. One of the questions at the heart of the memoir is the very same many folks ask victims of abuse: “why did you not leave sooner?”. Machado’s story reveals the cyclical nature of abuse that perpetuates it into an all-encompassing, time-spanning experience. Additionally, the book seeks to bring awareness to the invisibility of queer domestic abuse (and emotional abuse at large) by bringing the reader into the story and universalizing it. How Machado manages to accomplish these goals is—whether intentionally or not—partly due to her manipulation of Einstein’s theory of special relativity alongside Saussurean linguistics. This manipulation is used to force her story into the historical archive despite its tendencies to silence the voices of the oppressed. She uses a story structure that ultimately begs the medium of a book. Machado makes her story of invisible abuse unavoidable, on-going, and universal by situating the nowhere-signified, completed abusive events of her relationship onto a temporally fixed document, thus reifying her story as an undeniable moment in history and breaking the silence of the archive.

            Later in the memoir. Machado laments on not having any physical proof of her abuse. She imagines being “hit hard enough that you’d have bruised in grotesque and obvious ways” (Machado 224). She admits how awful it sounds, but part of the perpetuity of the abusive relationship is in this lack of evidence. “In the court of other people” (225), her story would be provable. She doubts that she is even facing abuse when she sees no way to justify it even to herself. In the theory of relativity, moments of change in time are simply called “events” (Collier 3.2.3). We as humans perceive life in a four-dimensional world: a world that contains three dimensions denoting space plus one dimension that marks time. Events occur whenever something happens to a three-dimensional object in time. Physics marks these events using the coordinate “t” on top of the familiar x, y, and z coordinates (3.2.3). That marking is itself proof of an events occurrence. In a more literary sense, these grotesque bruises Machado fantasizes about are those t marks on spacetime. Lacking the ability to plot in the fourth dimension, Machado loses her ability to comprehend the events that happened to her. The moment those abusive events are over, they vanish from all perception.

            Enter the memoir. The memoir itself is more than the comments the narrator makes to her friends John and Laura, her therapist, even her neighbor’s dog (Machado 192). Those comments, like the moments of abuse, are all unplotted events. The one thing they lack is the ability to be observed outside of memory. Broader change in the world comes from an event’s observability, from a dramatic change in the archive’s story. The physicality of the book fixes the temporality of recalled events in every meaning of the verb. In the Dream House is a world-line. The memoir is a sequence of t coordinates. “If we link all those events together [sic] we would have a line representing… progress through spacetime” (Collier 3.2.3), a line revealing a lie in the archive’s ignorance. When one is faced with invisible or vanishing abuse, the written word makes perpetual proof of the events the same way a bruise (or even better, a photo of a bruise) would. The physical, four-dimensional (3+1 dimensional) nature of the paper book is itself signifying the abuse Machado received.

            In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure writes, “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound-image. The latter is not the material sound, a purely physical thing, but the psychological imprint of the sound, the impression that it makes on our senses” (Saussure 66). He goes further to describe the “concept” as the “signified” and the “sound-image” (also known as the “material”) as the “signifier”. An abused person then is commonly understood to be a sign comprised of bruises as the signifier and abuse being the concept signified by those bruises. Thus abuse, and by extension the story of abuse, becomes cyclical. Recognition of abuse becomes justification by the abuser for further abuse.

            This is one way to answer the question of “why did you not leave”. Abuse as a semiotic sign is self-perpetuating. Leaving would be inciting further abuse. There is the closed cycle. All options lead to further abuse. And so, the silence of the archive is enforced not only by political powers in charge of it, but by the ones whose stories need to be heard the most. As Machado writes, “sometimes stories are destroyed, and sometimes they are never uttered in the first place; either way something very large is irrevocably missing from our collective histories” (Machado 4). And so, Machado sought to create a universal space in the archive for queer stories of emotional abuse. She reifies this even through the dedication with a circular and cyclical phrase: “If you need this book, / it is for you” (Machado Pretext). Bringing the reader into this perpetual story universalizes it. And universalizing this perpetual story makes it undeniable by the archive, let alone in a free market where publishing is easier than ever. Machado enforces this book as a growing, recycling world-line. This works almost along the lines of a war of attrition. It is a reverse boycott, in a sense. When protesters refuse to leave the doorstep of their oppressors, turning a blind eye is impossible. And while voices can be silenced, the written word speaks with no sound. In the Dream House then becomes the sempiternal protestor who can only be silenced by physically destroying the text in its entirety, thus beating “the house of the [ruler]” (Derrida 1) in this war of attrition and entering itself into the archive.

            Machado states this in the prologue, “I enter into the archive that domestic abuse between partners who share a gender identity is both possible and not uncommon, and that it can look something like this” (5). From the beginning of the book, she illustrates that this will be a book about every story of queer domestic abuse using her own story as a microcosm. The archive, while in theory being mythological, is held together by the physical reality of the written history that is contained within it. A verbal story (or perhaps even an audiobook) is not so easily provable. It is itself just an interpretation of physical events on a world-line, regardless of if that story is fiction or nonfiction. It is the recording of those events, the plotting along the t coordinate, that spatializes the temporal. It gives a signifier to the signified. It unifies time with space in an example of special relativity. As Minkowski writes, “Henceforth, space for itself, and time for itself shall completely reduce to a mere shadow, and only some sort of union of the two shall preserve independence” (Minkowski 1). Wounds will fade. Words, written words, will not. It is through the union of wounds and words that Machado universalizes her experience to many.

            Thus, Machado writes this universal world-line. And every step of the way, she reemphasizes the perpetual nature of abuse. She even goes so far as to implore the reader to reread and recycle the experience—or event—of certain pages. Take the chapter, “Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure” for example. If following the rules dictated in the pages, it is more than possible but probable to fall into an endless cycle of rereading these pages. In fact, the only option that allows the reader to continue reading the book is housed within the most radical, improbable, fairytale-like description:

“If you toss back the blankets from your body and hit the floor with both your feet and tear through the house like it’s Pamplona, and when you get to the driveway your car keys are already in your hand and you drive away with a theatrical squeal of the tires, never to return again, go to page 176.” (Machado 175)

All of the other choices on this page lead to further back within the chapter. Physical pagination here is crucial. Again, while completely adhering to the rules the chapter lays out, there are still pages skipped. Pages that are visible from other pages. Those unreachable pages, the unmakeable choices in an abusive relationship, are entirely visible as possibilities to the victim of the cycle. Here Machado forces the reader to recreate those events over and over all the while being able to see that those events are just repeated page numbers in an unending story. This is universal perpetuity.

            The content of the book, and in particular this chapter, actually changes depending on the medium it is consumed in. In eBook form, hyperlinks are used over the copy and pasted “go to this page” at each choice (Machado eBook ch. 3.28). Eliminating page numbers, it becomes additionally difficult to find a way out of this cycle. And in following the hyperlinks, there becomes no way even to view the “impossible” pages at the same time as the in-bounds pages. Choice and clarity are even further obfuscated in the audiobook format. Imperatives are changed to subjunctives, and choice is entirely eliminated from the narrative. Every choice description is fronted with “you could”. For example, the first set of “choices” are, “you could apologize profusely. You could tell her to wake you up next time your elbows touch her in her sleep. You could tell her to calm down. You tell her to wake you up next time” (Machado audiobook 3:47:31-45). The impossible pages are entirely omitted. Here it is also worth briefly mentioning the use of second-person subjects. The narrator, the reader or listener, and the author are all the same. With each step away from spatiality and physicality, then, the reader loses more and more agency to the book, even the possibility for agency. With each step away from the story’s physical presence, the narrative is increasingly silenced. Hence the necessity and power of the physical book. The book exists to counter that silence.

            In the prologue, Machado states, “I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound” (Machado 5). Here, the vast crevice is the gap in the archive. Diving into the grammaticism of this quote, there become two ways of reading the verb “measure”. Semicolons of course separate two similar independent clauses in a sentence. For the latter clause in the above quote, “measure” must be an imperative verb. And so, Machado commands the reader to measure the silence of the missing information within the archive. The other interpretation—and likely the implied interpretation—utilizes what is called a “null subject” (Holmberg 537). There is a subject “I” that is dropped, implying that the narrator is the one measuring this silence.

            But as previously discussed, In the Dream House unifies the narrator, author, and reader through the second person. Therefore, this is another case of the same. Removing the “I” subject in the second reading of this sentence is an active sight of this story’s universalization. Furthermore, this suggests that the act of reading Machado’s memoir is itself a critique of the archive, and thus a rebellion against it. That very same small sound that echoes in the crevice of the archive is multiplied a thousandfold. Every reader of the memoir is making that one small sound louder. A hailstorm of tiny pebbles can be louder than the drop of one boulder. This is what Machado is banking on for the necessity of change.

            Further, a hailstorm of pebbles can fill a cave crevice with time where a single boulder could not. The book is a call to action that answers itself. In this fixed point in spacetime, another similar story is added. It is given more depth through each independent read, evolving from four dimensions to five, then six and onward. This is the relativistic simultaneity of events. All observers of this universal story of abuse view it as its own time selection as well as within the time they themselves are observing the events occurring. These two time periods are different, yet also simultaneous (D’Inverno 2.10). And so, there is no choice but to observe these events by the archive. If the rulers of the house that determine the archive read this story, they are simultaneously rebirthing it anew. And as Machado illustrates,

“The memoir is, at its core, an act of resurrection. Memoirists re-create the past, reconstruct dialogue. They summon meaning from events that have long been dormant. They braid the clays of memory and essay and fact and perception together, smash them into a ball, roll them flat. They manipulate time; resuscitate the dead.” (Machado 5)

Despite the simultaneous, seemingly inescapable, recurring nature of the story of queer abuse, it is also continuous. Machado inadvertently confirms this in the chapter “Dream House as Time Travel” (18). She discusses the Novikov self-consistency principle in referring to a person observing their own past. Novikov states that “Events on a [closed timelike curve] are already guaranteed to be self-consistent… they influence each other around the closed curve in a self-adjusted, cyclical, self-consistent way” (Friedman et al. 1916), meaning observation of the past via time travel can only be that: observation. Yet, self-observation of course confirms that the self exists after the completed events of, in this case, the cycle of abuse. Therefore, the cyclical nature of abuse, and the understanding of its cyclical nature, is itself proof of a non-cycle that exists before and after the abuse starts. While this is certainly hopeful in some respects, Machado notes that “Novikov’s time traveler is the tragic dupe who realizes too late her trip to the past is what sealed the very fate she’d meant to prevent” (Machado 18). Indeed, the cycle of abuse still haunts the victim long after the abuse ends. This confirms that abuse is, of course, drastic and life altering. Abuse is permanent. Though thankfully, it does not have to continue in physical form, only in memory.

Nevertheless, that continuity still holds control over Machado to this day. She mentions in speaking to her past self through Novikov’s seemingly now open timelike curve that “I thought you died, but writing this, I’m not sure you did” (14). Her memoir then becomes a sign for not one, but two cycles: the cycle of abuse, and the cycle of recovery from abuse. She returns to this idea in “Dream House as Ending” (239). Machado admits to not entirely knowing when to end the story. Because in reality, it is still happening. She contemplates looping it into another cycle, trying to tie a bow on it, even just avoiding ending the book. And so, she does not end the book. Metaphorically, at least. It is worth stating that she ends the book by publishing it, but not the story. The Dream House carries on into its readers, just as it continues to influence Machado’s own life. The public—the previously described “court of other people” (225)—is the archive of the Dream House. A separate, simultaneous one to combat the house of the ruler’s archive. And while it is certainly a product of book printing and publishing, the final two pages in the book are left blank. It is fun to imagine that as the place for the reader to continue their own story.

In the Dream House is, without a doubt, an emotionally difficult text. Yet despite its difficulty, its purpose is undeniably a hopeful one. It takes this perpetuality and universality as a chance to make change. When there are bad rules, one must make their own. And that is exactly what Machado does throughout this memoir. Its physicality is rebellion multiplied indefinitely. Where domestic abuse feels unstoppable, the unification of its victim’s voices is even more unwavering. The archive and the abuser are only two sets of arms in a game of tug against infinite, undying opponents.

 

 

Works Cited

 

Collier, Peter. A Most Incomprehensible Thing: Notes towards a Very Gentle Introduction to the Mathematics of Relativity. Incomprehensible Books, 2017. This book is a textbook on Einstein's theory of relativity, written in a considerably approachable manner. Its design toward less "mathy" scholars made it perfect for this literature analysis.

Derrida, Jacques. “Archive fever: A Freudian impression.” Diacritics, vol. 25, no. 3, 1995, pp. 9–63, https://doi.org/10.2307/465337. One of the original theory papers developing the idea of the archive. In the footnotes, Derrida mentions conversations with women historians who have to beg for pardon from the 'patriarchive' in any contradictory observations they make.

D’Inverno, Ray. Introducing Einstein’s Relativity. Clarendon Press, 1998. A more advanced textbook on relativistic physics. Contains more in-depth definitions than Collier's book. As such, this essay used it primarily for research opposed to quotes.

Friedman, John, et al. “Cauchy problem in spacetimes with closed timelike curves.” Physical Review D, vol. 42, no. 6, 15 Sept. 1990, pp. 1915–1930, https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.42.1915. The full paper on Novikov's self-consistency principle in time travel. Machado pulls from this text as well, so this essay used it for further information.

Fuerst, James W. Review of Carmen Maria Machado: In the Dream House, The Brooklyn Rail, 2019, https://brooklynrail.org/2019/10/books/Carmen-Maria-Machado-In-the-Dream-House/ Accessed 2025. A fantastic review of the memoir in question. It touches quite a bit on the experimentality of Machado's style, which is crucial to the question of this essay.

Holmberg, Anders. “Is there a little pro? evidence from Finnish.” Linguistic Inquiry, vol. 36, no. 4, Oct. 2005, pp. 533–564. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.1162/002438905774464322. Linguistic theory on the nature of dropping subjects (known as pro-drop) in English despite English not being a pro-drop language. Machado's prologue is proof of this theory.

Machado, Carmen Maria. In the Dream House: A Memoir. Paperback, eBook, and audioback ed., Graywolf Press, 2019. The source material of this analysis.

Minkowski, Herman. Space and Time. Translated by Meghnad Saha and Wikisource Contributors, Wikisource, 2010. Peer-reviewed transcription and translation of Herman Minkowski's groundbreaking lecture in 1908. This is one of the original lectures in which the theory of relativity was available to the public.

Saussure, Ferdinand De. Course in General Linguistics. Philosophical Library, 1959. A foundational linguistic theory that defines the sign, signified, and signifier. It is fit with graphics that are of great aid to understanding the theory.