" A Dream " Analysis

In Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, “A Dream”, Poe uses the sentence structure, figurative language, and repetition to show the underlying emotions that connect with the inner conflict experienced from oneself or those around them.

Poe uses a gothic style of writing which creates a depressing tone.  Using words like “dark” and “broken-hearted” adds to the tone and the overall understanding of the meaning. This poem has a rhyme scheme of ABAB and enjambment of all for stanzas which help give the poem a faster pace. The mood of the poem is depressing because it is showing the pain of real life, how he must tolerate it, and shows the only way he could escape the dreadful fear of reality was through his dreams. Poe’s main style of figurative language is alliteration such as “ dream by day” and “world were (line 5)” because it emphasizes and draws the reader to “the holy dream”. The repetition of this line further shows theme will be shown throughout the poem and it amplifies the importance of the dream to the narrator. Poe chooses to incorporate rhetorical questions to allow the reader to interpret the poem in different ways. This poem was written to show how the narrator is immersed in this exclusive fantasy dream world. These dreams he had were his way of fleeing to his own utopia because his dreams were a way for him to not confront his own world and reality. Edgar Allen Poe expresses this concept of realism by a using a strong theme, a melancholic tone, and by the elaborate use of figurative language throughout this piece.

Like Morgan from Beryl Bainbridge’s Every Man for Himself , the narrator is plagued by recurring dreams that are now a consuming part of his life. With Morgan's dreams/day dreams centered on different experiences, Edgar's is different as it just focuses on one past experience. He is trying to hold on to some memory that is fleeting because it is still better than the reality he lives in. "I have dreamed of joy departed/But a waking dream of life and light/Hath left me broken-hearted.” This poem shows his fixation to something in the past. This is similar to Morgan as his dreams mostly deal with his past experiences. "That holy dream- that holy dream / While all the world were chiding / Hath cheered me as a lovely beam (lines 9-11)." The dream that is being referred to is something that brings him joy and that is why he is trying to hold onto it.

In Beryl Bainbridge’s Every Man for Himself, Morgan, the narrator, shares some of the disturbing dreams that he experiences that not only gives insight about his fears but also gives insight to his past. "Too early the next morning I woke with the fragment of a dream still in my head. It wasn't the one that had disturbed my childhood nights and brought Sissy running (Bainbridge 9)." In one of his dreams, he "saw a man on hands and knees, scrabbling at the soil, a piece of newspaper flapping on the sole of his boot"(Bainbridge 8). They also revealed his feelings about his mother and the type of relationship that he was seeking. "It was my mother who came into my dreams and that only as someone I cried out for when the old woman made those terrible noises and the yellow bile jerked on to my cheek (Bainbridge 9).”  Bainbridge uses the dreams of Morgan to show the reader how he reflects on his past experiences and he even says that dreams deal with the memories of the past, not tell the future. Similarly, Poe proves that the past memories can find their way back if they are wanted.