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The man who had been playing the harp all night, was trying in
vain to cover it with an ordinary-sized nightcap, when I awoke;
or should I rather say, when I left off trying to go to sleep,
and saw the sun shining in through the window at last."
In this dream we see the topsy-turvy world that goes through David's
head that night, dream and reality seem to intermingle in a confusing
manner. On a psychological level David could not have dreamed of
anything else but also from a structural point of view this dream is the
only thing the writer could have put in the chapter to create this
atmosphere of longing. The conversation with Aunt Betsey could not be
repeated, it would be boring repetition which the dream is not.
Again the mood seems most important, the reader can sense the hopeless
ness of David's situation and his feelings of helplessness where Dora
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is concerned, through the dream. The night seems long to David and
his thoughts keep on going back to one subject, Dora. This is why the
music only plays one tune and Dora dances only one dance. His mind
keeps harping on the same string and Dora is central in his thoughts.
On a psychological level this is obvious to anyone who has ever been
in love and on a structural level it brings the reader back to the same
motif all the time in a convenient manner.
David's fear of not being acceptable to Dora is represented too, she does
not take the least notice of him. When one wants to be very happy, one
has to have the inner power to be terribly unhappy. David is frustrated
in his love life and the frustrations return in the dream so the
musician tries "in vain" when David awakes or should he rather say:
even there he feels frustrated and does not know what is happening to
him.
At the end of this passage describing a dream Dickens mentions the sun
shining in at last, to David's relief, so that a happy ending is fore
shadowed, the dream passage ends in a favourable way and the ground for
future developments is prepared. This is not only here the case but al
so in Chapter 55 when Steerforth's death is announced. Steerforth is
the friend David looks up to until his eyes are opened and he sees the
hard and haughty Steerforth for what he really is
"There was a dark gloom in my solitary chamber when I at length
returned to it; but I was tired now, and, getting into bed
again, fell - off a tower and down a precipice - into the depth
of sleep. I have an impression that for a long time, though I
dreamed of being elsewhere and in a variety of scenes, it was
