Read below our complete notes on the poem “A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe. Our notes cover A Dream Within a Dream summary, themes, and analysis.
Introduction
“A Dream within a Dream” is a short poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. It was published in 1849 in a magazine that was named “The Flag of Our Union”. Poe was a famous American poet, short story writer, journalist and literary critic. This poem is based on an earlier work of Edgar Allan Poe named “Imitation”, published in 1827. In that work, he tried to explore the idea of the mystery of life.
The poem “A Dream within a Dream” questions human existence and reality. This is a simple poem having two stanzas. The first stanza shows the narrator departing from his beloved and in the second stanza, he is all alone on a shore. Like most of the poems of Poe, this poem also uses the sea as its setting. The poem is simple, easy and straightforward, however, its content is a little tricky.
The title of the poem “A Dream within a Dream” makes us think that the poem is going to be a description of a dream within a dream but our expectation goes wrong when we find the speaker of the poem struggling to find the answer of a question whether his life is real or just an illusion. The central concern of the poem is “nature of reality” and how can we find that everything around us is real or not?
A Dream Within a Dream Summary
The poem starts when the speaker says goodbye to someone, implied to be his beloved. Earlier this lady has told the speaker that “his days have been a dream”. The speaker kisses her forehead and as he is departing, he wishes to tell her something. He tells her that she was not wrong in saying that his days have been a dream. We don’t know whether she said this in a positive sense or not. Maybe, the days that they spent together were so beautiful that they compare them with a dream.
As the speaker says goodbye to his beloved, it leads him to hopelessness. The day or night doesn’t matter for him now, he even doesn’t care whether his life has a vision or not because these things can’t make him feel less hopeless now. Then he claims all of his life and everything that he sees is not just a dream but a dream within the dream. He emphasizes on another layer of unreality by saying ” dream within the dream”. He is hopeless and is not ready to accept the reality of his life so he calls it “a dream”.
In the second stanza, the speaker is found alone. He stands on a shore among the sounds of moving waves of the ocean. He tries to understand the reality of this world by grasping the sand in his hand. The grains of the golden sand slip pass through his fingers and get mixed deep inside the sand down on the shore. He tries hard to hold the grains but fails. The speaker feels helpless and he weeps to see this scenario.
In his helplessness, he prays to God and tries to know if he is capable of holding these sand grains tightly in his hand or not and can he save even a single grain of the sand from falling down and getting destroyed by the cruel waves of the ocean. In the end, he restates his opinion that life is a dream within the dream but this time he leaves this question for the readers to find its answer and to solve the mystery of life.
Themes in A Dream Within a Dream
Representation of life
In this poem, the poet claims that our life is nothing more than just a dream within a dream. He compares life with a dream because he knows that just like a dream, everything in our life is also temporary. Life goes on with great speed and no one can stop or grasp anything in it forever. The poet shows deep feelings of love for his beloved but then he says goodbye to her and the next moment, he finds himself standing alone on a tormented shore. Later he thinks that their love and their union were just a dream.
Doubt and Uncertainty
In the entire poem, the speaker appears to be in a state of doubt and uncertainty. He is not even sure about the reality of his life and he considers everything just a dream within a dream. He is confused about the days that he has spent and he tells his beloved that she was right about him that his days were just a dream.
Now it is not clear whether the days that he has spent with her were not real and he was just watching a dream or maybe their days were so beautiful that they compare them with the dream and fantasy. At the end of the poem, the speaker is still in doubt about the reality of his life and existence. He ends the poem by leaving a question whether his life or whatever he sees is just a dream within a dream or not.
Love and Departure
At the beginning of the poem, the poet says goodbye to someone, implied to be his beloved. He asks her to receive a kiss on her forehead as he is leaving. It shows that they love each other and are sad at his departure. In the next lines, the speaker shows hopelessness maybe because he is going away from his love.
Hopelessness and Pessimism
At his departure, the speaker becomes hopeless. He talks to his beloved and tells her that all his hope has flown away and the days and the nights don’t matter for him now. He doesn’t show concern whether his life has a vision or not. He says that these things can’t make him feel less hopeless now. This is the height of pessimism.
The speaker doesn’t clearly mention the reason behind his sadness and hopelessness but we can guess that maybe, he is going away from his beloved that’s why he is hopeless.
Isolation
The speaker of the poem says goodbye to a lady in the first stanza and then he is all alone in the next stanza. He stands on a shore among the roars of the cruel waves alone and tries to find out the reality of his life.
Sometimes, when a person is stuck in some trouble or if he wants to solve any riddle then he spends some time in isolation to get himself out of the situation. This is the reason that the speaker is alone on the beach and struggling to find the answer to the riddle about the reality of his life.
Struggle
On the shore, the speaker grasps some grains of the sand in his hand but the grains slip pass through his fingers and get mixed with the sand on the shore. The speaker starts crying seeing his helplessness. He tries hard and struggles to grasp the sand grains in his hand but fails. The speaker gets frustrated seeing all this and starts crying. Maybe, he realizes that his reality is slipping away from his hands just like the grains of the sand.
Failure and Helplessness
As the speaker fails to grasp the sand grains in his hand, he feels helpless. He struggles hard to hold the sand tightly but can’t succeed. In his helplessness, he starts crying and appealing to God to help him.
Faith
As the speaker finds himself in the trouble, he appeals to God to take him out of this situation. After continuous failure, he starts weeping and praying to God. It shows that he has strong faith in God, that’s why he remembers Him at the time of trouble. Moreover, he also asks God whether he is capable of holding the sand grains in his hand tightly or not and whether he is able to save a single sand grain from the cruel waves or not. He asks for God’s help to solve the mystery of his life and help him to find out whether his life is real or he is living in the world of fantasy.
Reality Vs Illusion
From the beginning of this poem until the end, the speaker is found in doubt and uncertainty. He is confused about the reality of his existence and life. He doesn’t know that the days that he spent with his beloved were real or just his illusion. Twice in the poem, he mentions that everything that seems and that he sees in his life is not just a dream but a dream within a dream.
In the second stanza, the speaker tries to find out and confirm the reality of his world by grasping the grains of the sand in his hand. The sand continuously slips, passes through his fingers, and falls down. He becomes more hopeless and in his helplessness to control the sand, he starts crying. Maybe, he weeps seeing the reality of his life slipping away from his hand just like the grains of the sand.
A Dream Within a Dream Analysis
Lines 1-5
In the opening lines of the poem, the poet addresses someone and asks her to receive a kiss on her forehead. It is expected that the speaker talks to his beloved and he wants to kiss her before saying goodbye as he is leaving for somewhere. However, it is not mentioned where he is going.
As the poet is going away from his beloved, he wants to express his feelings to her before leaving. The speaker tells her that she was never wrong to tell him that he has been living in a dream. Now there are two possibilities, she says all this either because the speaker has really been living in a dream or she wants to tell him that the time and the happy moments that they spent together has been just like a dream.
Lines 6-11
In these lines, the poet asks her what happens when the hope leaves. He asks whether it makes any difference or not? Does it actually matter when the hope leaves? The poet has become hopeless for some reason. He tells her that all his hope has flown away and now for him it doesn’t matter whether it is the daytime or the night, whether his life is a vision or not. These things don’t matter because according to him these things can’t make him feel less hopeless now.
The poet doesn’t mention the reason behind his hopelessness. However, as he is leaving his beloved, maybe that is the reason why he is sad and lost his hope. In the next lines, he says that everything that we see or perceive is none other than a dream within a dream. First, he agrees to the lady in the opening lines saying that she was right to tell him that his life was a dream now he repeats the same thing again. The poet suggests that what seems is not real and everything is just a fantasy and imagination. A dream is something that is not the reality but here the poet is calling everything “a dream within a dream” to emphasize the idea that how far the reality is.
Lines 12-18
The poet stands on a shore. He explains the scenario and says that he stands on a shore that is pounded by the surf coming from the ocean. He says that he stands among the “roar”. He uses the word roar to compare it with the loud sound of the water waves. The poet then grasps the golden sand of the shore in his hand.
The shore is full of golden sand. The poet manages to grasp a few grains of this golden sand in his hand but these grains also slip through his fingers and fall down and get mixed in the deep shore or the deep ocean. The poet cries seeing all this. He tells us twice about his weeping to lay emphasis. Maybe, he is weeping because he realizes that his reality is slipping away from him just like the grains of the sand. It frustrates him and he cries.
Lines 19-24
In these lines, the poet now appeals to God. As the grains of the sand slip through his hand, he asks God whether he can hold the grains more tightly in his hand or not. He further asks whether he is able to save even a single grain from the cruel waves or not.
This gives us the idea that how desperate the poet is to save the grains of sand and he is trying hard to prove that he is capable of doing it. He tries to prove that everything is real and not his dream or illusion.
The poet ends the poem with the same lines that he mentioned above. Earlier he just said that everything we see or that seems is just a dream within a dream but this time the poet is actually asking whether everything that we see or understand and everything that seems is just a dream within a dream or not?
After all his weeping and the sand that ran through his fingers, he is not completely ready to accept that all we see is just a dream within a dream and nothing else. Therefore, at the end of the poem, he leaves this question for the readers.
Perhaps he is not ready to accept the losses in his life and the things that slipped through his fingers like the sand or his love. Maybe, he thinks none of it was real at all and everything was just his illusion or his dream.
Literary Devices in the Poem
Alliteration
The repetition of the same consonant sound in the same line is called alliteration. Alliteration is used throughout this poem. For example,/d/ sound is repeated three times in the following line:
“You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;”
Moreover, /w/ sound is repeated in the line “While I weep”, /h/ sound in “And I hold within my hand”.
Imagery
The writers use imagery to enable readers to visualize the feelings and emotions of the writer. In this poem, the poet has used visual imagery in the following lines:
“kiss upon thy brow”
“grains of golden sand”
“pitiless waves”
“while I weep” etc
Personification
When the attributes of living things are given to the non-living things, this is called personification. In this poem, the poem has personified hope by saying that “hope has flown away” while flying is the quality of living things.
Moreover, the poet also uses personification for the sand grains by saying “they creep through my fingers” while we know that “creeping” is also an attribute of the living things.
Metaphor
The hidden or implicit comparison between two things is known as metaphor. In this poem, the poet has used the metaphor in the following lines:
“I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore”
In these lines, the poet compares the loud sound of the water waves with the roaring sound of a lion.
Rhetoric question
A question that is asked just to lay emphasis on something and not to receive any answer, is known as a rhetoric question. In this poem, the poet has asked many rhetoric questions that are as follows:
“Is it therefore the less gone?”
“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?”
Assonance
The repetition of the same vowel sound in the same line is called assonance. In the poem, /i/ sound is repeated in the line “In a night, or in a day” and /o/ sound is repeated in the line “Of surf-tormented shore”.
Refrain
The lines that are repeated in a poem at some distance are known as a refrain. In this poem, the title of the poem “A Dream within a Dream” is repeated twice in the first and the second stanza of the poem, so it is an example of refrain.
Symbolism
Symbolism is the use of symbols for the conventional representation of something apart from its literal meaning while a symbol is a sign, mark or an idea. The poet has used the following symbols in the poem:
The poet says that he stands on a tormented shore but in reality, the shore is not really tormented. In fact, it symbolizes the inner self of the speaker. As the speaker suffers despair, he himself is tormented from inside.
The speaker holds the grains of the golden sand in his hand. The grasping of the sand grains symbolizes the speaker’s efforts and struggles to prove that his world is real and it is not an illusion and it can be grasped or touched but in reality, it slips away from his hands.
Moreover, the falling of the sand grains from his hand is also a symbol. It symbolizes the passing of the time quickly.
