The Slave's Dream Response

“My spirit cannot rest in peace until I see you dead” These will be the words of one that persecution and condemnation has followed throughout their existence. It is a blissful notion in those who are oppressed sight but resentful to reproachable eyes. Sometimes it is easy to believe that revenge is the only escapable emotion that is left. However, not every individual would coincide with this ideology. There are those who enkindle their hearts for a better future. In Longfellow’s poem, “Slave Dream” the text reveals to the audience that perhaps believing in something better is more pleasurable than dwelling on present pain and sorrow. Longfellow gets this idea across through his use of diction, pathos, and imagery that there is always something better to believe in.

The title of the poem “Slave Dream” can be interpreted or misinterpreted in various ways. “For Death had illuminated the Land of Sleep.” (Longfellow). The denotation of dream is defined as images, sounds, thoughts feeling experienced while sleeping. On the other hand the connotation of dream can be interpreted as aspiration or even a wild and vain fantasy. Long fellow’s diction reveal that it is rather the connotation of what is meant by a dream that is being used. The use of diction reveals that though the slave is being whipped to the point of death, his unconscious mind still dreams of a better future. They say your life flashes before you before you die, however, in the author's text, the audience realize that the protagonist of the poem is not remembering the breakdown or wretchedness of his life, but rather this particular character is dreaming of a promise land. Sequently, the author has a distint way of exalting the oppressed through diction. “The Lordly Niger flowed”. (Longfellow). This statement on its own is an oxymoron. One can not be “lordly” and have a name that degrades after it. It is some what of a comfort perhaps to the author that there is a sense of authority given in the tone of a physically defeated man. This use of diction in a way entwines the protagonist’s and the authors thoughts that there is always a way to a better tommorrow. It starts with a positive mind set. Should the character present be one with the lowest rank in society then he can be the crown of his own mind.

Commiseration is also one that can't but be felt for the character presented in Longfellow’s wording. Without much analyzation effort, a reader can determine that the predicament of the disposition provided is a slave; that is kept in bondange. “A tear bust from the sleeper’s lids and fell into the sand”. (Longfellow). Here lies a collasping man who is at the border line of life and death. Through his last moments, memories of his wife and children flash across whats left of him. The author first begins by expressing the man’s love for his wife and refer’s to her as “his dark-eyed queen”. Even when close to the grave, his love still returns to his loved ones. Everything he holds near and dear, he will soon be departing from it. Longfellow’s compelling way of evolking pathos from his audience is done not soley through the protagonist’s eyes but in some way through the wife. Readers are put in a position to imagine what its like for a wife to look into the eyes of a soon to be dead husband.

There’s no better way to understand what an individual goes through unless there is a first hand witness present. Apparition is the best remedy for reader to interpret the pain and sorrow flowing through the author’s passage. To carry out this conception Longfellow does so through the use of imagery. “His breast was bare, his mattered hair was buried in the sand.” (Longfellow). It is not hard to depict the oppressed under the hands of their oppressors. The oppressed seeks liberation and Longfellow make is lucid for readers to see the clear ache and ill-treatment that this individual slave is suffering from. This revelation of sorrow, should readers to take time to understand, is one that causes even the author to be remorseful while composing his poem.

Happiness is whatever any entity wants it to be. Longfellow makes this clear when he introduces his audience to one that is gone through all that is beyond hell but still manages to dream the best of dreams.