"Lamb calls Dream Children 'a reverie', but it does not have the incoherence of dreams" -Discuss.

Ans. Dream Children are the children who live in the world of dreams and fancy, reverie - a day dream. Everyone likes to loiter in the world of dreams and hopes to get what he cannot get otherwise Lamb is ardently desiring in his dreams that he gets married to the woman he loves and that children have been born to him, whom he narrates the story of his grandmother, his dearest brother John Lamb and his beloved Alice Winterton. But his hope vanishes off as, in the end, these shadowy children vanish into thin air. Lamb indulges in wish-fulfilment through a reverie.

Though Lamb roams around in a kind of day dream. the essay does not have an incoherent pattern. On the contrary, it has a well-knit sequence that the readers seldom get in any other story. The most striking feature in the essay is the absence of any paragraph-division. It is composed of a number of separate and separable parts. Dream Children is a completely and complexly written essay, in which dream-pattern weaves the different reminiscences into a coherent whole. In a dream. different reminiscences flow spontaneously and naturally making a round whole at the end. Likewise Dream Children is not divided into paragraphs.

Lamb recollects the golden days of yore and tells his dream children the stories of his affectionate grandmother, Mary Field. who lived alone in a haunted house at Norfolk. A tall, upright and gracious lady. Mary Field, was very kind and tender-hearted and loved her grandchildren. very much. During vacations Lamb and his elder brother John used to spend some days with their grandmother. The lonely gardens and empty house became lively with the joy of the children.

Lamb could never forget the loss of his elder brother John throughout his life, so, it is very normal that he would tell his children about him. John was a handsome and spirited youth who never moped about in the solitary corners of rooms and gardens and liked to ride on a spirited horse over the countryside in the morning. Like a real elder brother. John. loved his younger brother, Charles, so much that once he carried him many a mile on his back when he became lame. But Lamb's wonder world was devastated all of a sudden when John died a tragic and premature death.

Lamb, lastly, took his children to the world of love and fancy. Lamb could not forget his adolescent love and this overwhelming love relationship which lasted for seven long years, became a topic of his discussion Lamb suddenly feels that his dream children become fainter and fainter and the castle he has built in the air shatters in front of him. His sweet heart Alice's children belong to Bartrum who is their father. Life outside is simple and unaffected like Hardy's Nature, unaware and uninterested about the sorrows and sufferings of human being. Lamb's sister Bridget represents this notion as she remains unaffected by what Lamb is dreaming. Lamb is thus harked back to reality as his creative world is shattered. The comparison between Keats' Ode to Nightingale and Lamb's Dream Children becomes inevitable as both the works unfold a poignant moment which has been transmuted into a tenderly pathetic reverie. The loneliness of human life creates a retrospective melancholy and Lamb's unique blending of humour and pathos inspires his readers with the intensified vision of the wistful lustre of life.

Write a note on the blend of humour and pathos in 'Dream Children'.

Ans: Arnold expressed:

"Humour might be defined as extreme sensitiveness to the true proportion of things" and, "the power of imaginatively acknowledging the multiform aspects of the problems of life and thus getting oneself unfixed from one's own over-certainty and smiling at one's own over tenacity". With Charles Lamb, humour and wit is often allied to pathos. The undercurrent of pathos always flows humorously through his wit. fun, playful fancy and whimsical exaggerations. Wit is based on the intellectual apprehension of things which connotes the ability to recognise subtle resemblance in things not commonly associated. The series of portraits that he has created has a Hogarthian richness, but untouched by the satire of Hogarth.

Dream Children is full of lively sketches of Lamb's grandmother and his elder brother. He narrates the pathos in their lives. The deliberate gaiety of Lamb is mostly based upon poignant memories. In this essay Lamb unfolds the idea how a fragile, based upon poignant moment is transmuted into a tenderly pathetic reverie by Lamb. Fun is basically an innate tendency to jocoseness which presupposes that everything around us is formed for our jest, sport and amusement. Fun transforms into humour when there is a mixture of reflection. The essay is a phantasm which consists a most sincere revelation of the deeper side of Lamb's mind. It becomes nostalgic for what might have been and determines to "wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe for millions of ages" before "they can have an existence and a name". With deep sigh Lamb describes: "The children of Alice call Bartrum father" humour and pathos mix up exquisitely when Lamb's dream children utter: “ We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been.”

Lamb's urge for freedom and his interest in life are expressed in Dream Children and at the same time it portrays his agony at being denied the joys and wishes of life. He was conscious of the morbid melancholy he suffered from, and his manly spirit often made him assume a gay exterior just to ward off undesired sympathy.

He looked upon the world at large and saw in men much to sorrow for, which made his heart weep. He overlaid the pathos with fun and wit in order to save his own identity from becoming sentimental. These criteria are evident in his address to the India House, where he confesses "unhealthy contributor to my weal. stern fosterer of my living farewell! In thee remain, not in the obscure collection of some wondering book sellers, my works!"

Lamb's grandmother. elder brother, might-have-been wife and dream children are dealt with sympathy, as well as sensitiveness.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS OF THE ESSAY "DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERIE" BY CHARLES LAMB

1. Write a note on the blend of humour and pathos in 'Dream Children'.

2. "Lamb calls Dream Children 'a reverie', but it does not have the incoherence of dreams" -Discuss.

3. What idea of Lamb's personality is revealed in the essay Dream Children?

EXPLANATION:

1. "Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimneypiece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts, till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it."

2. "I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the Twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them."

3. "I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir apples, which were good for nothing but to look at—or in lying about upon the fresh grass, with all the fine garden smells around me—or basking in the orangery."

4. "I courted the fair Alice W——n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens—when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech."

5. "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name."