A Dream Within A Dream by Edgar Allen Poe

A Dream Within A Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? Edgar Allan Poe "A Dream Within A Dream" is a Gothic poem as is characterized by its extremely emotional, inherently sublime, and disturbing atmosphere. Those characterizations are presented in two lines: "O God! Can I not save (21) / 'One' from the pitiless waves?" (22) Extreme emotion, frustration, despair and fear of death, is present when the author cries, "O God!" (21). Awe inherent in the sublime is present when the author realizes he cannot "save (21) / 'One'" (22). The atmosphere is disturbing when the author refers to the waves as "pitiless" (22). The author identifies his psychological anxiety when he says the memories cannot be saved not even "One" (22). Mystery and darkness appears when the author cries, "O God!" (21) Madness and death is present when the author realizes he cannot save even one reality, but time will take it away like the "pitiless wave" (22). The author cries to a supernatural being is desperate with psychological anxiety, for he cannot save one memory, the waves take on personification for being pitiless: they are without regard for his desires. Like the grains of golden sand life and life's golden memories slip through his fingers with the passage of time, much like waves eroding the sand on a beach. Lines ten and eleven, and twenty-three and twenty are couplets. They consist of two lines that rhyme with "seem" and "dream," but they do not have the same feet or meter. This couplet is an epigram: it is brief, clever, and memorable. For example, "'All' that we see or seem (10) / Is but a dream within a dream" (11), and the next: "Is 'all' that we see or seem (23) / But a dream within a dream?"(24) are memorable lines that rhyme with alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is with the "s" sound in the words "see" and "seem"(10) and (23), and "d" sound in the words "dream" and "dream" (11) and (24). Assonance is presented with the "ee" sound in "see," "seems," "dream," and "dream" (10), (11), (23), and (24). In the first stanza, Poe gave a more formal farewell goodbye to his wife. “Take this kiss … parting from you know,” these two lines express Poe’s affection and sadness as he loses his lover, his beloved wife. It is apparent how she claimed life is only a dream, now that Poe acknowledges that fact as she’s already gone. The lines, “Yet if hope has gone away… the less gone?” put across Poe’s hopelessness when it comes to hope. He also repeated the word “in” to emphasize how fragile and sudden hope can disappear. By the end of the first stanza, Poe concludes, “All that we see or seem … a dream within a dream”. He used the alliteration of the terms “see” and “seem” to depict the fact that nothing we see or feel is any more real than a dream. As the second stanza begins, we are introduced to a powerful image, the “surf-tormented shore”. Poe describes himself standing among the anguish roars of waves. This is a metaphor used to express Poe’s torments from the loss of his wife, how he couldn’t cope with the pain, how the waves and roars are over powering him, how he’s drowning in his own misery. The poem progresses with the poet’s struggles of letting go. Poe depicts his impotence through the imagery of his grasping grains of sand. Poe underwent great sufferings as he fails to hold on to the “golden sand”, a metaphor for his dear yearnings. The “golden sand” then falls to “the deep”, to that abstract space where he couldn’t reach. “While I weep– while I weep!” The poet states how he weep as his misery overwhelmed his defenses, as he breaks down. As the pain takes his breath away, Poe entreats to God for savior. Even so, he still beats himself up from the fact that he couldn’t hold on any longer. His pain accentuates as Poe states how he wants to save his loved one from dying, from the metaphor of “ saving one from the pitiless wave”. Here Poe used the repetition of the phrase “O God!” to express his burning desire and aching towards the loss of his wife. Then, to conclude, Poe repeated the two lines, “Is it all we see… a dream within a dream”, to highlight once again the idea that everything is just a dream.

Hamlet Act III

I think there are several very interesting parts to the exchange between Hamlet and Ophelia during Act 3. For starters, I thought it was weird how Ophelia said, “My lord, I have remembrances of yours/ That I have longed long to redeliver.” This is due to the fact that soon after Hamlet tells her that he never gave Ophelia anything, yet she insists that he did in rich detail—“words of so sweet breath/ composed/ As made the things more rich. Their perfume/ lost.” In these few lines alone, Ophelia is expressing how she believes that Hamlet indeed is the writer of those letters. Moreover, Shakespeare even shares a monetary thematic message when he uses words like “rich” and “lost” again tying back to the significant message of financial burden in order to illustrate relationships and social components throughout Hamlet. Additionally Shakespeare also reintroduces the “whore” motif and “perception” versus “reality” or “seeming” versus “is-ing” when Hamlet retorts to Ophelia “That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.” In essence, Hamlet is accusing Ophelia quite cleverly remarking how her beauty has nothing to do with the level of her moral justice and quite frankly, (for Hamlet), he states it as if Ophelia’s beauty and her morals are inversely related. Hamlet then elaborates further by saying “the power of beauty will sooner transform honestly from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness,” therefore basically calling Ophelia out that it’s easier for her to become a whore than to change her roots and become a pious woman, thus resulting in him suggesting that Ophelia later take herself to a nunnery and shun herself from society. Hamlet therefore is proposing that surface beauty, aka “seeming” on the exterior for a human being is very influential, but wrongly, since inner beauty through the worth of morality should be more impactful. Yet Hamlet seems very harsh in his words as he rebukes Ophelia, “If thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry. Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” This statement, however, seems quite contradictory to me due to the reason that Hamlet is giving Ophelia the opposite advice that her father has given Ophelia. Hence, if I were in Ophelia’s position I would be very confused on two conditions: first, my father has told me that I shouldn’t give my love to Hamlet or else I would give birth to a fool and second, Hamlet, however, has just told me that I should marry a fool. Likewise, I would also be quite annoyed by what I would have done to deserve all this verbal abuse from both my boyfriend and father.

Hamlet Act 3: Thoughts & Analysis

It is ironic how everyone in the beginning of the play views Hamlet as mad since this can be illustrated by how Rosencrantz says “He does confess he feels himself distracted. But from what cause he will by no means speak” (3.1.5-6). Then Hamlet casually strolls in contemplating death while Claudius and Polonius hide to spy on him. Hamlet is a genius in that his words reflect what is on his mind yet his secret onlookers are unable to understand the reason behind what he is saying. Claudius and Polonius believe that he is suffering the heartache that has resulted from his love for Ophelia when in essence, Hamlet is pensively thinking about a matter concerning Claudius. This can be illustrated when Hamlet later tells Ophelia, “Those that are married, all but one, shall live” (3.1.60-61). Yet during Hamlet’s soliloquy Hamlet is again torn between “seeming” versus “is-ing.” He wants to know “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer/ The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune./ Or to take arms against a sea of troubles./ And, by opposing, end them”(3.1.58-61)? In other words, Hamlet means whether or not it would be the better route to simply put up with all the pain that the world has thrown at him by silently keeping it to himself or by fighting through physical force. Yet Hamlet soon contemplates a new question: whether or not living is even worthwhile. This can be illustrated in that Hamlet views dying with comfort: “To die, to sleep--/No more—and by a sleep to say we end/ The heartache and the thousand natural shocks/ That flesh is heir to—‘tis a consummation/ Devoutly to be wished! To die, to sleep./ To sleep perchance to dream—ay, there’s the/ rub” (3.1.61-67). In translation, Hamlet simply says that dying and sleeping seem to be basically the same thing, in that death is simply a sleep that never wakes, but allows us to end all the trouble and pain that life on Earth forces upon us, so shouldn’t we wish to die? Yet, Hamlet then muses even further because he considers how in death we also dream. And when we die, no one can determine what kind of dream we may have whether it be pleasant or stretches our sufferings eternally. By this point, I’d like to imagine the look on Claudius’s face (if he is, as predicted, responsible for murdering Hamlet’s father). Obviously, when Hamlet is speaking he’s not contemplating his own death, but his father’s. And the only person in the room, besides Hamlet who could possibly know of such a deed would be Claudius himself. Claudius is probably pondering at this time what King Hamlet must be feeling once he is dead and feeling rather guilty about his deed, yet still he does not catch on to the fact that Hamlet knows that Claudius is responsible for his father’s murder. Claudius will simply believe that Hamlet is still grieving. On the other hand, Polonius may think that this episode completely justifies his belief that Hamlet is mad because his contemplation seems as if Hamlet was talking about suicide. Hence, I love how Hamlet is able to voice out all his thoughts, yet none of the characters are able to understand the true meaning behind those words.

Invisible Man

I spend a majority of my time during the “Snow Apocalypse” reading Invisible Man, but only read a lousy additional chapter when I was aiming for much more, but slowly I’ve come to realize that Invisible Man is filled with subtle, implicit meaning and I’ve been busy discovering, unearthing all those small details that are hidden within each page. I’ve begun to wonder many things about Invisible Man such as why Mr. Norton has such an important role in the novel. Moreover, why is the narrator so concerned about Mr. Norton giving him a bad report? Why is he so afraid of becoming humiliated? Why is he constantly worried about a white man’s opinion? What is the narrator so afraid of? Consequences? Becoming reprimanded? Overall, this book has had my thoughts spiraling—I can comprehend what’s going on, but I don’t understand why the author has chosen to use such events or why he even decides to incorporate several characters. In short, I don’t know what the main idea or point the author is trying to reach. When I’m reading, my mind is constantly thinking, Am I missing something that I should be getting? There has to be more than just this. However, I have noticed some powerful color imagery such as the color gold, which seems to be everywhere as a motif for power and falsified wealth. For example, the “Golden” Day is ironic in that it involves veterans who look forward to their “golden” years during retirement but are only out once a week from a mental ward. Moreover, I don’t understand the purpose of the phrase “the grass is green,” although it has me thinking whether or not it’s color imagery for something “fresh”, such as the girl’s relationship with her boyfriend (I believe, the narrator, comments on how she will eventually become pregnant), but still I don’t understand why such detail is important to the overall purpose and main idea of the book. Moreover, I find it paradoxical due to the fact that when we meet Trueblood, there’s also talk about women becoming pregnant, hence I do see that there is a reoccurring theme but I can’t understand what it’s supposed to represent. Fertility? Submissiveness? Danger? Blindness? Hence, I’ve constantly been arriving full circle: when I think I’ve finally figured out the purpose for the author to incorporate one detail, another one arrives. However, I have noted how much irony is common throughout the entire novel, such as the fact that Trueblood’s name implies purity when he could potentially be labeled for molestation and rape. Finally, I also find it stunning that there is so much contrast in white and black, literally and figuratively. Historically, there is so much relevant information that is alluded through such as southern sharecroppers and slave quarters. Moreover, I also thought it interesting how Ellison metaphorically illustrates Mr. Norton as an animal due to his “animal-like teeth” and the women who watch over him relate his organs to animal organs. Hence, again I am realizing the analysis, but what is the purpose behind it all?