In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Delmore Schwartz - Analysis

Written by
Delmore Schwartz


In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

Themes

  • Movies as drug of escapism
  • Daydreaming is hereditary in this family
  • Struggling to piece together the movie
  • Nature reflects emotions

·       Preoccupation with preservation of the moment, with immortalization of the moment rather than the experience; the grand scheme of things more important than the moment; a sense of doom and appreciation of the attempt to fix the sense, to fix the past

·       Anxiety of conformity which is illustrated by the structure of the dream – like a movie – feels he is watched and doesn't do things right

·       Is he anxious about not being born? Is he desperate for his parents' relationship to have worked? He sees his parents' mistakes clearly and is desperate not to repeat them, to do what's right, a "right" that is dictated by society.


Style and devices

  • First person narrator telling a story as a third person narrator
  • Defamiliarization and meta-literary consciousness
  • Excitement/agitation causes run-on sentences


Recurring words

  • Motion picture
  • Movies
  • My father
  • My mother (Rose)

People and places

  • 1909
  • Brooklyn
  • William Randolph Hearst (magnate and newspaper publisher)
  • William Howard Taft
  • Coney Island

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