Style and Technique
The mysticism and dreamlike nature of Mrs. McNair’s life is mirrored in Godwin’s prose. Short, incomplete sentences printed in italics that are interspersed throughout the story forcefully convey the tragic, mystical aspects of Mrs. McNair’s life. Godwin’s precise language creates a surrealistic mood against the tragic undercurrent of the story. Images of a contented young woman are juxtaposed against fervent reminders of a tragedy that she underwent. Twice a detached voice wonders how the woman was able to retain her sanity, thereby planting doubts in the reader’s mind. Although the story is related from the point of view of a detached observer, it ends, persuasively, again with print italicized, in Mrs. McNair’s own words. “I am a happy woman, that’s all I know. Who can explain such things?” Whether she is mad as suggested and as her husband fears, or she has simply experienced an alternate reality, is rendered inconsequential. Only her visits with her son are important.
Symbolism abounds in this story. Deprived of sexual desire and physical sensation after her ordeal, Mrs. McNair rides in reckless abandon on her stallion, an animal that is the embodiment of uncontrollable sexuality. She rides him fearlessly, not as the demure housewife that her neighbors believe her to be, but as if she is beyond the mundane world, for nothing more can affect her. Surely the otherwise kind father and good husband, Mr. DePuy, would not wish her to fall were she riding a subdued mare, appropriate for a young wife. A stallion, however, best serves her altered, surreal state of existence.
Literary Techniques
Godwin's third-person omniscient narrator functions much like a versatile village voice or, alternatively, a roaming journalist with unrestricted access—thanks to a reliable microphone and a dose of truth serum. This allows the McNairs' sorrowful—or for some, optimistic—domestic saga to be conveyed with significance. Admittedly, the narrative consists of a fragmented sequence of thoughts, personal reflections, impressions, folk wisdom, sound bites, and rhetorical questions, all presented in a mix of italics and plain text. Despite the slight awkwardness this format might introduce, it ultimately delivers a deeply moving story that captures the essence of the human mind as it selectively recalls events, yet includes a touch of everything, presented in an engaging series of scenes and "dissolves."
Godwin's approach to her subject matter clearly incorporates elements of magical realism—a term that might seem contradictory at first but is a literary technique often employed when crafting a serious story with personal significance, particularly those involving dreamlike or ghostly children returning to earth in some form. Magical realism is defined in A Handbook to Literature, 7th edition (1996), by William Harmon and C. Hugh Holman, as a global trend in the visual and literary arts—especially prose fiction—throughout the twentieth century. While the work may appear realistic on the surface, it incorporates contrasting elements such as "the supernatural, myth, dream, fantasy," which transform the entire foundation of the artistic process. A direct statement, quoted within the story, underscores Godwin's method and intention beyond dispute. The child psychiatrist informed Mrs. McNair, when she was nine and prone to nighttime wanderings from her bed, that children exist within a magical reality that ensures their safety.
Ideas for Group Discussions
Godwin's "Dream Children" delves into themes such as marriage, self-identity, and the experience of loss.
1. Considering the themes and Godwin's narrative style, did "Dream Children" evoke a strong emotional response in you? If it did, please elaborate.
2. Do you find the story's conclusion, which poses a rhetorical question about Mrs. McNair's happiness, effective in summarizing her life...
(This entire section contains 260 words.)
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story? Share your thoughts from one perspective or both.
3. What do you believe is the significance of the italicized sections throughout the story? Who is responsible for these thoughts or statements? How do they integrate with the main narrative, which is presented in standard text?
4. Do you think Mrs. McNair was intentionally trying to end her life by recklessly racing her stallion, making it appear as an accident?
5. How believable do you find Godwin's portrayal of Mrs. McNair's nightly spiritual journeys to connect with her deceased son, especially considering her emotional state as a grieving, hopeful mother?
6. Why do you think Godwin chose to depict Mrs. McNair as a sleepwalker during her early childhood?
7. In your opinion, why did Godwin include a scene where Mr. McNair, a television producer, watches a program with his wife that supposedly offers a self-examination of TV?
8. Reflecting on the story's emphasis on "double lives," do you believe that many people today lead "double lives" in some form?
9. One of the italicized lines states, "yes, the race of children possesses magically sagacious powers!" What are your thoughts on this statement? Do you find it to be accurate, realistic, exaggerated, or something else? Provide evidence to support your perspective.
Literary Precedents
Given the absence of concrete evidence, it seems reasonable to start with the assumption that Godwin's story has its literary roots in the work of English essayist Charles Lamb, specifically in his piece "Dream-Children: A Reverie" from 1822. In this essay, Lamb, who was a bachelor, imagines a scene where he is a widower with two children. These children sit close to him as he recounts stories of deceased family members, including their supposed Great-grandmother Field and his long courtship with their mother, referred to as "the fair Alice." According to his tale, Great-grandmother Field once managed a grand house in Norfolk, living there alone while the owner resided elsewhere. The house was linked to tragic events made famous by the ballad "Children in the Wood." She believed that, accustomed to sleeping alone, she could see an apparition of two children gliding up and down the grand staircase near her room at midnight. The dream children are portrayed in a lifelike and endearing manner. At one point, he feels "the soul of the first Alice" gazing out from the eyes of the little Alice beside him, listening to his stories. Eventually, the images of the dream children start to fade, leaving only "two mournful features" visible in the distance, seemingly conveying a message: they are not Alice's children, nor his, nor even children at all. Alice's children refer to another man as their father, the one she married. They are nothing more than dreams, "what might have been," and must wait countless ages to exist and be named. The narrator then awakens, having dozed off in his bachelor armchair.
Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), a renowned British composer known for his Enigma Variations and Pomp and Circumstance Marches, also created two brief orchestral pieces titled "Dream Children," comprising an Andante and an Allegro, Op. 43. This music, performed by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, is available on a Chandos Digital CD #241-4. Noel Goodwin's program note (1999) explains, "The two Dream Children emerged in peaceful contrast to the celebratory music of King Edward VII's Coronation in 1902. The title is inspired by Charles Lamb, and a lengthy quote from him at the score's conclusion ends with the poignant words, 'We are only what might have been.' This sentiment echoes in the yearning sadness of No. 1 [the Andante], with its reflective oboe and clarinet, and also appears in the more upbeat No. 2 [the Allegro]." While there's no evidence that Godwin was aware of this music, this connection between Lamb's reverie essay and Godwin's "Dream Children" is intriguing.
Stories about dream children, ghostly offspring, or hypothetical children showcase a diverse range of authorial depth and sensitivity. Readers' responses to such fictional works often vary based on their personal preferences and past experiences related to children. However, the literary quality within this genre is inconsistent and defies an average assessment. The following examples illustrate a few specific cases. Thomas Bailey Aldrich's "Miss Mehetabel's Son" (1873) is derived from a recurring tale told by a quirky, absent-minded old man in a New Hampshire country hotel in 1872. He narrates, in a series of episodes, the life of a son he might have had, had he proposed to his long-time love, Mehetabel Elkins, which he never did. This story is perhaps the most entertaining and whimsical in this genre, especially since the elderly storyteller has several other intriguing eccentricities and only carries the imaginary biography up to the boy's twelfth year. He is always ready to start the tale anew, even for an audience that has heard it before.
While Aldrich's story contains only a hint of the macabre (the imaginary boy dies in an accident at age eleven), W. W. Jacobs's once-renowned story "The Monkey's Paw" (1902) is fundamentally gruesome. It belongs not only to the "ghost child" fiction category but also to the "three magic wishes" category. The story revolves around a monkey's paw cursed by an Indian fakir to demonstrate the peril of tampering with destiny. The paw grants its owner three wishes. One man, who acquires the monkey's paw, initially wishes for money—soon receiving it as compensation for his son's death in an industrial accident. Later, persuaded by his wife but feeling uneasy about it, he wishes for his son to be alive again. A mysterious knock at the door leads him to believe he is about to face his horribly disfigured son, risen from the grave. Overcome by fear, he wishes his son dead once more.
Interestingly, the following two stories are remarkable in many ways but have remained largely overlooked over the years, likely due to their philosophical depth. Both narratives explore men who, for personal reasons, choose not to reunite with their lost children or forgo uncertain opportunities to do so. In Rudyard Kipling's "They" (1904), a grieving father discovers a grand house in the southern English countryside, managed by a blind woman. The house and its surroundings are inhabited by the ghosts of children whose parents live nearby and occasionally have the chance, seemingly a privilege, to reunite with them. William Faulkner's "Beyond" (1933) follows a dying judge who seems to be entering Heaven, burdened with doubts and conflicting emotions about life, death, the afterlife, God, and the prospect of seeing his son again. As he both seeks and avoids finding his lost child, he encounters various figures in this unusual Heaven, including Mary and Baby Jesus, and engages in a heated debate with an atheist philosopher about traditional Biblical Christianity versus rationalism. In the judge's complex thinking, which echoes other Faulkner works, he appears to expand on the Tennysonian idea that "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." Essentially, following Faulkner's perspective, which directly relates to the judge's deceased son somewhere in Heaven, it "is better to have loved and lost than to have loved and not lost."
Another literary example can be found in the works of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1896-1953), who is best known for her novel The Yearling (1938) and her memoir Cross Creek (1942). As noted by the present author in a 1974 literary biography of Rawlings, nearly her entire body of work, from her early writings to her final novel, The Sojourner (1953), can be seen as "some pictures of the boy she never had." While her stories don't exactly feature ghost children, her intense longing for a son of her own is evident from her youthful attempts at writing fiction and through incidental events throughout her life. Two particular works, the short story "A Mother in Mannville" (1936) and the novelette Mountain Prelude (1947), include a little orphan boy resembling one she once met in the North Carolina mountains. As highlighted in the aforementioned study of Rawlings, her portrayals of the imaginary boy "constitute a remarkable study of a woman's tormented mind fantasizing dream children and redemptive second chances."
Several literary works have been influenced by Godwin's "Dream Children." Toni Morrison's novel Beloved (1987) tells the story of a deceased baby, killed by her enslaved mother to spare her from the horrors of slavery, who seemingly comes back to life under extraordinary circumstances. John Sayles's screenplay for the film The Secret of Roan Inish (1994), adapted from Rosalie K. Fry's novel, The Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry (1957), is set on a small island off the coast of Ireland and depicts the mysterious reappearance of a young Irish boy who was lost at sea but returns to play in the sand as he once did. Joyce Carol Oates's "Ghost Girls" (1995) is a horror story about violence and decadence among drug dealers, focusing on an enraged man who kills his two young daughters. As the title suggests, these daughters return in spectral form at intervals, continuing their playful activities.
Adaptations
"Dream Children" was transformed into an audiocassette by the American Audio Prose Library in 1987.