Was it a Dream Guy de Maupassant 1850

Was it a Dream? Guy de Maupassant (1850 -1893)

Context • A story that questions one’s judgment and emotions and instills doubt within the reader • Not the typical romantic love story. • In 19 th century France, women were often considered to be submissive and labeled romantics—not men.

Plot • Looking back • Mistress gets sick • Mistress dies • Heart-broken lover visits cemetery • • has vision (was it a dream? ) Has epiphany

Plot • 1) Why did the author arrange the story elements the way he did (flashback)? What effect did he wish the story to produce? • 2) How does the plot control our emotional response and prepare us for reversals or surprises? • 3) Is the plot probable?

Point of View • 1) How does the point of view affect your response to the story, to the characters and theme? • 2) Is the narrator reliable? How do you assess his reliability? • 3) Are the plot and the point-of-view of the story linked? If so, how?

Point of View • "Suddenly, it seemed to me that the slab of marble on which I was sitting, was moving. Certainly it was moving, as if it were being raised. ”

Character • What are the character’s main personality traits? • What are the character’s morals or ethics? (super ego) • Why does the character do what he does? (fall into a dream-state) • What is the character’s relationship to other characters and why?

Character • "I knew nothing more, nothing. I saw a priest, who said: 'Your mistress? ' and it seemed to me as if he were insulting her. As she was dead, nobody had the right to say that any longer, and I turned him out. ”

Setting • Does the time period, location, time of day, season, weather or any other setting play a role in understanding the author’s intent? • How does the setting shape or define the story? (think: mood/atmosphere)

Setting • "There was no moon. What a night! I was frightened, horribly frightened in these narrow paths, between two rows of graves. Graves! graves! nothing but graves! On my right, on my left, in front of me, around me, everywhere there were graves! I sat down on one of them, for I could not walk any longer, my knees were so weak. I could hear my heart beat! And I heard something else as well. What? A confused, nameless noise. Was the noise in my head, in the impenetrable night, or beneath the mysterious earth, the earth sown with human corpses? I looked all around me, but I cannot say how long I remained there; I was paralyzed with terror, cold with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die. ”

Conflict • What conflicts exist? (internal, external, both? ) • Person vs. • Society • Person • Self • Supernatural

Theme • Does the title have anything to do with theme? • Are there repeating patterns and symbols in the story?

Literary Devices • How do these devices convey or contribute to the author’s meaning? • Is language used to help you understand the characters or to help establish the significance of theme and tone? • Does a character or element of the story represent something else?

Literary Devices • Diction: "I had loved her madly! • Rhetorical Questions: "Why does one love? • Simile: “a name which one repeats over and over again, which one whispers ceaselessly, everywhere, like a prayer. ”

Literary Devices • Symbolism: "I stopped short in front of that looking-glass in which she had so often been reflected--so often, that it must have retained her reflection. ” • Personification: ”At the end of the cemetery, I suddenly perceived that I was in its oldest part, where those who had been dead a long time are mingling with the soil, where the crosses themselves are decayed, where possibly newcomers will be put tomorrow. It is full of untended roses, of strong and dark cypress-trees, a sad and beautiful garden, nourished on human flesh.

Psychoanalytic Criticism • ID: the part of the mind in which inner, unconscious impulses and “primary processes” (pleasure principle) are manifest.

Psychoanalytic Criticism • EGO: the part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for “reality testing” and a sense of personal identity. • Reality Testing: the objective evaluation of an emotion or thought against real life, as a faculty present in normal individuals but defective in psychotics.

Psychoanalytic Criticism • SUPER EGO: the part of a person's mind that acts as a self-critical conscience, reflecting social standards learned from parents and teachers.

The ID (desires) • • Wants to possess his mistress: • Death has taken her, and he cannot bring her back. • What did he love most about her? (She often looked in the mirror…The priest’s “insult”) Feelings of guilt • • Watching the “naked skeletons” change their history and confess their sins—How does this reflect on him (are they really doing this? Or does he imagine it because he too has sins to confess? ) Mistrust and Suspicion: • When SHE too changes her inscription— She is dead so she cannot confess. Her confession is born in his mind. What does this tell us about him?

The EGO (conscious vs subconscious) • Reacting when the priest states, “Your mistress? ” • • “…and it seemed to me as if he were insulting her. As she was dead, nobody had the right to say that any longer, and I turned him out. ” Protecting her “honour”—

The Super Ego (social standard) • • Seeing the dead for who they really are: • The “sins” being confessed as so due to the constraints society puts on us; • “'Here reposes Jacques Olivant, who died at the age of fifty-one. He hastened his father's death by his unkindness, as he wished to inherit his fortune, he tortured his wife, tormented his children, deceived his neighbours, robbed everyone he could, and died wretched. ’” Are these new epitaphs the narrator’s subconscious desires that he has repressed? Why has he not committed these same crimes? Is he passing judgement, or simply reflecting the society around him?

Questions • Are there dream sequences, and do these sequence offer evidence of disguised impulses? • Wants to accuse mistress of being unfaithful? • Commentary on the nature of women? • • Does he feel she deserved her fate? Does he feel morally superior to her and the others in the grave yard?

Questions • What does the dream mean symbolically? • We take our guilt with us to the grave (and even after death we can still be tormented) • The afterlife? • Death does not absolve us of our sins (contrary to what the narrator wanted us to believe about his mistress).