Skip to main content

The Hidden Conflict Between Dreams and Reality- Society of Reluctant Dreamers, Agualusa

 In the text, Society of Reluctant Dreamers, Agualusa challenges the meaning and importance of dreams. In the book, they have the ability to appear in people's dreams, and one character, in particular, can dream about people he hasn't met and future things that haven't occurred yet. He can dream about the future. He uses this power to appear in everyone's dreams in Angolan to overthrow the government, a one-party state. This power over dreams is bizarre and not what we usually think dreams are. Dreams are funny, confusing, metaphorical tales that we become aware of in our sleep that don't always make sense and can arise hidden feelings or motives we would not know when we are conscious. In the Society of Reluctant Dreamers, this dreaming is not a mere confusion or weird story in our heads but a movement to defeat politics and the political authority at the time. This creates a collective dream among the whole population of Angolans and gives people the courage and bravery within themselves to stand up. As a community together, they are able to find the strength to come together and make a change. This power is crazy to think about and is something we would not see in everyday life. 

One question I have is, How can the unconscious affect us so profoundly? Especially when we are conscious and always careless about things and scared? 

After watching the lecture, I wanted to reflect on the point about how Agualusa uses dreams as a metaphor to bring change. Jon mentioned in the lecture how this was a metaphor for literature having the same effect. Literature is powerful, and words on a page hold so much meaning, especially in Romance Studies, where the words hold hidden themes and underlying thoughts/memories. I believe that literature has the power to create change. Just like our dreams coming to us in the unconscious, literature is an escape from reality when you read. It is somewhat a form of the unconscious, and that's why I think it has more power than words from people. Hearing things in the unconscious allows us to fully grasp the idea without adding our own bias from the natural, conscious world. 

This book had many themes of repetition and conflict between original and copy stories, just like the conflict between dreams and reality. For example, in the book, when the character meets the woman he previously dreamed about, he calls her a fake image of the woman he dreamed about, and she does not seem real. This challenges the tradition of dreams being a copy and reality the original. Agualusa flips it around many times. This book was sometimes hard to follow because of these confusing, non-traditional themes. Another example of bizarre is when a character tells the world that his brother is dead, but in the end, his brother is there in the political overthrow. Why was this hidden from the reader for so long? 

I am super excited to discuss this book this week and hope that I can further understand Agualusa's intentions and writing! 

Labels:

Comments

  1. Aliyah KhanApril 4, 2022 at 5:16 PM

    Hi Alyssa, insightful analysis!

    "How can the unconscious affect us so profoundly? Especially when we are conscious and always careless about things and scared?"

    I think the unconscious, similar to the subconscious, represents our repressed feelings and memories and perhaps our deepest desires without the limits of reality (such as the consequences to our actions/thoughts). With our minds free to wander wherever, I think it builds courage in ourselves.

    - Aliyah Khan

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Good Place to Pass- The Old Gringo, Carlos Fuentes

The Old Gringo was a book that caught my eye at the beginning of choosing our texts because it was somewhat a romance. I did not expect this book to be all about love, but more themes of war and violence in the story. The Old Gringo was an engaging text about a man known as "Old Gringo" who came to Mexico to die. At the beginning of the novel, there was repetition with the words, the old gringo has come to Mexico to die. I believe that this repetition forces the reader to know what the gringo's intentions were at the start, to see later that at the end, he has somewhat found a purpose to live. The Old Gringo travels to Mexico, meets Arroyo, and asks him to join his army. After proving himself, Arroyo lets him join, and he meets a lady called Harriet. He quickly falls for her, despite not wanting to but lets himself anyways. Harriet feels like she must protect the old man, so she joins the army to assist onside. The Old Gringo gets into a fight with Arroyo, and Arroyo betr
7 comments
Read more

My take on Proust's Swann's Way

 I enjoyed reading the first part of Proust's book. The intricate detail in every scenery and memory was breathtaking and truly brought me to experience those feelings. He described many feelings I have felt before and ones I never knew how to put into words. One that stuck with me was the feeling and the difference between sleeping in summer to sleeping in your bed in winter. The particular things we long for and how each feeling is connected to physical material. This could be as simple as the corner of the pillow or the window open. My favourite part of the text was the first couple of opening lines, where Proust describes falling asleep and being so tired that his candle was still lit. He described the feeling of your eyes closing so quickly that you don't have time to even think about it and say to yourself that you are falling asleep. I struggle with horrible insomnia, and specific material things help me sleep and comfort me. When Proust described all these feelings abou
4 comments
Read more

Never Growing Up and the Influence of Peers- Agostino

 Agostino is a kid who never really grows up. In the beginning, I thought that Agostino was around the ages of 10-11 years old. I could picture this from how he envisioned his mother, so blessed by her presence and in awe of her beauty. He loved her like a child. He also was treated like a young child by his mother too, and the way he complained about her attention towards him and his jealousy made me think he was much younger than he actually was. Later in the book, we learn that he is 13 years old when he tells the man and his son on the boat ride. This book shows how much others' influence has on you. In the beginning, Agostino was a young, innocent, well-behaved boy who enjoyed his mother's company. After encountering the young boatman who "stole" his mother away from him, feelings of hatred, disgust, and jealousy arose within him. He could not fathom the idea of having to share his mother, especially let this man enjoy and indulge in her beauty that was only admi
3 comments
Read more