JC
The texts we study are so full of dreams. Which sounds lovely. But – like love – dreams are complicated, unwieldy things. Listen to the songs below if you want to really understand their multi-dimensional nature!
Dreams are everywhere in our course texts. But you can’t analyse each writer’s use of the word in the same way. The “dream” motif is employed by each writer for different reasons and is intended to have different effects.
ACTIVITY 1
How are dreams presented?
Consider the lyrics below and then come up with 2 or 3 answers, in each case, to this question: “How are dreams presented?” Essentially, you’re looking for at least 2 or 3 words (per lyric) that would fit at the end of this sentence: ‘Dreams are presented as…” (If you wish, you can refer to the list of options that I’ve included at the bottom of this page, but this not an exhaustive list). The ideas in orange beneath the Neck Deep lyric should give you a clear idea of what I’m asking.
ACTIVITY 2
Try, too, to explain your thinking. In each case, you will probably want to consider the relationship between the word ‘dream’ and the other words surrounding it. Read the red Neck Deep paragraph and you’ll have a clearer idea of what I’m asking.
10. Neck Deep: ‘A Part Of Me’
“Now all I can do is lay in my room
Fall asleep, dream of you
Then wake up and do nothing about it”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: elusive; abstract; demoralising.
Neck Deep accept that their dreams are elusive. That word “all” suggests there is nothing beyond the dream – it is only of value in itself, and the pleasure it brings in the moment. Ultimately, the fact that it will lead to “nothing” highlights the dream’s demoralising nature. The idea that Neck Deep “fall” to sleep might be significant too. The metaphor infers a sense of dreaming as an experience of losing control, and even of danger if the landing place is too far off or overly solid. The verb “lay” is telling too – underlining the dream’s lack of tangible potential. When the speaker dreams, he is dormant/passive. When waking, then, he becomes depressed by the abstract nature of the dreams. Any brief satisfaction the dream might have offered is undermined by those inevitable futile waking hours, during which the speaker realises dreams don’t actually bear any relation to actual life.
LINK TO:
- Stage directions, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’: “She (Blanche) stands there a little dreamily after he has disappeared.”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “Jordan… unlike Daisy… was too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age.”
9. Paramore: ‘Misery Business’
“I watched his wildest dreams come true”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: unpredictable; exciting; dangerous.
LINK TO:
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city”
8. Ankor: ‘Oblivion’
“If this is all a dream, then why can’t I escape?”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: painful; difficult; incomprehensible; portentous.
LINK TO:
- Brabantio, ‘Othello’: “This accident is not unlike my dream: / Belief of it oppresses me already. / Light, I say! light!”
- Othello, ‘Othello’: “But this denoted a foregone conclusion: / ‘Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “I tossed half-sick between grotesque reality and savage, frightening dreams.”
7. Maggie Lindemann: ‘casualty of your dreams’
“I’m the casualty of your dreams
‘Cause I’m not the one”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: impossible; idealistic; dangerous.
LINK TO:
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “Daisy tumbled short of his dreams”
6. Taylor Swift: ‘Stay Stay Stay’
“You took the time to memorize me
My fears, my hopes and dreams”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: important; precious; individual.
LINK TO:
Shakespeare, ‘Sonnet 116’: “love is not love / Which alters when it alteration findes,”
5. Lonely The Brave: ‘Trick Of The Light’
“Don’t you wake me up, I’m dreaming”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: an escape; relief; divisive.
LINK TO:
- Offred, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: “The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others.”
4. Against The Current: ‘lullaby’
“How the hell you dreaming
When the world’s a nightmare?”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: indulgent; selfish; delusional; powerful; terrible.
LINK TO:
- Blanche, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’: “Never, never, never in my worst dreams could I picture–Only Poe! Only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe!–could do it justice!”
- Blanche, ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’: “You didn’t dream, but I saw! Saw! Saw!”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “…foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams…”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air”
3. Years & Years: ‘Sweet Talker’
“You’re such a sweet talker
Man of my dreams
Tell me, where are you, where are you now?”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: idealistic; temporary; illusory; painful.
LINK TO:
- Keats, ‘La Belle Dame…’: “And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide!”
- Offred, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’: “I dream that I get out of bed and walk across the room, not this room, and go out the door, not this door. I’m at home, one of my homes, and she’s running to meet me…”
- Jay Gatsby, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “the dead dream fought on as the afternoon slipped away”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air”
2. VV: ‘Echolocate Your Love’
“If you wanna dream what I dream
Don’t close your eyes”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: tangible; unifying; motivating; thrilling.
LINK TO:
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “beyond the dreams of Castile.”
- Daisy, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “You dream, you. You absolute little dream.”
- Nick, ‘The Great Gatsby’: “And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
1. Something Corporate: ‘Konstantine’
“But I’m slipping in between
You and your big dreams”
DREAMS PRESENTED AS: individual; important; divisive; complicated.
LINK TO:
- Offred, The Handmaid’s Tale’: “…sudden apparitions, like Martians. There was a dreamlike quality to them; they were too vivid, too at odds with their surroundings.”
ACTIVITY 3
How are dreams presented?
Choose a ‘dream’ quote from one of the texts you’re studying (pick from the ones included above or make your own choices) and write a paragraph in response to the task:
Focus on the multi-layered analysis – looking at quotes from two or three angles.
OPTIONS FOR ACTIVITY 1 (although, do remember this is not an exhaustive list – you may have your own original and brilliant ideas!)
- important
- painful
- precious
- unpredictable
- an escape
- motivating
- thrilling
- individual
- idealistic
- complicated
- important
- illusory
- painful
- indulgent
- selfish
- incomprehensible
- delusional
- exciting
- temporary
- powerful
- terrible
- relief
- divisive
- tangible
- unifying
- individual
- impossible
- difficult
- divisive
- portentous
- dangerous
- intangible