We all dream about how our lives could be improved. We dream about being more essential to everyone in the world. We dream about ongoing happiness. All people in the world want more than they already have whether it is fame, fortune, or success. However it is pleasurable to dream, it is not safe to get absorbed in them. Reality is what we as people need to live in in order to survive. The oppression that we deal with will not be solved if we make up fake realities to make our conditions seem finer instead of dealing with the issues at hand. In Dreams by Paul Laurence Dunbar, the narrator is imagining a life without oppression. He is fantasizing about being preeminent over his class in reality. The reader is lured in by Dunbar’s word choice
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Dunbar lived in a time where the wealthy white people are more successful than the black. The world was a very discriminative place and Dunbar lived in the deepest part of it. Dreams is about the deception of what the proletariat imagines. To make their current situation appear improved, Dunbar and his social class dreams about being the superior class. They want to have endless elation but get misguided by the fantasies they create in their minds. Dunbar also has dreams “Of wealth, of fame, of sure success”(Dunbar n.p.) but soon realizes he needs to awaken his fellow class and assist them to grasp that they are not actually in the illusion they have created for themselves. When the oppressed class is pulled out of the dream, they soon understand again how terrible their current situation is but return to their fantasies because they have no way to stabilize or fix the issues. They plan to dream in a dreadful situation to make it partially better and more enjoyable. Dunbar lets the readers know that he almost tolerates the despotism by being absent-minded to avoid all of the misery. He shows this concept in a very authentic way. One technique Dunbar used when creating his poem is personification. The first line of the poem says “What dreams we have and how they fly”(Dunbar n.p.) and obviously dreams cannot literally fly because they are an idea and not an actual object. “The somber cloud, the bitter rain”(Dunbar n.p.) is also not literal because clouds and rain cannot feel human emotions. Dunbar uses imagery frequently to explain how he witnesses his own dreams. “O burning doubt and long regret / O tears with which our eyes are wet,”(Dunbar n.p.) epitomizes his suffering he feels when he is detached from his dreams and has to encounter his obstacles with the premium class. The imagery creates an emotional connection between the
Dunbar lived in a time where the wealthy white people are more successful than the black. The world was a very discriminative place and Dunbar lived in the deepest part of it. Dreams is about the deception of what the proletariat imagines. To make their current situation appear improved, Dunbar and his social class dreams about being the superior class. They want to have endless elation but get misguided by the fantasies they create in their minds. Dunbar also has dreams “Of wealth, of fame, of sure success”(Dunbar n.p.) but soon realizes he needs to awaken his fellow class and assist them to grasp that they are not actually in the illusion they have created for themselves. When the oppressed class is pulled out of the dream, they soon understand again how terrible their current situation is but return to their fantasies because they have no way to stabilize or fix the issues. They plan to dream in a dreadful situation to make it partially better and more enjoyable. Dunbar lets the readers know that he almost tolerates the despotism by being absent-minded to avoid all of the misery. He shows this concept in a very authentic way. One technique Dunbar used when creating his poem is personification. The first line of the poem says “What dreams we have and how they fly”(Dunbar n.p.) and obviously dreams cannot literally fly because they are an idea and not an actual object. “The somber cloud, the bitter rain”(Dunbar n.p.) is also not literal because clouds and rain cannot feel human emotions. Dunbar uses imagery frequently to explain how he witnesses his own dreams. “O burning doubt and long regret / O tears with which our eyes are wet,”(Dunbar n.p.) epitomizes his suffering he feels when he is detached from his dreams and has to encounter his obstacles with the premium class. The imagery creates an emotional connection between the