Creating Psychological and Symbolic Elements

The use of dream content in a novel can show readers why a character acts in a certain way, even if the character does not seem to understand his/her own actions. For example, on page 300 of Mayflower Dreams, the protagonist is dreaming as she remembers something that happened in her past. She watches a memory version of herself. Her past, present, and future are connected together as she relives an event from her past that result in anxiety about her present and future life:

                        Rose knew what was going to happen next. She said, “Oh,
              no” as she saw the memory version of herself shifting her weight
              again; her left knee buckled. To avoid falling down the stairs, she
              had grabbed onto the stairway railing with both of her hands. The
              laundry basket fell down the stairs. The memory version of Rose
              did not fall, but her knee really hurt as she slowly walked down
              the rest of the stairs, picked up the basket, moved the clothes into
              the washer, and started the machine. When she turned around
              to begin the painful journey back up the stairs, she paused for
              a moment and looked directly at the spot where the real Rose
              from the future was standing. The real Rose was invisible to the
              memory Rose, but the real Rose knew that the memory version
              of herself was thinking about the future and about possibly never
              getting better. In the past, she had asked herself, “What will
              happen if I have to spend the rest of my life with this pain?” She
              had not yet found an answer to her question. (Petit 300)

                                             Work Cited
Petit, Karen. Mayflower Dreams. Mustang, Oklahoma: Tate Publishing and Enterprises, LLC, 2014. Print.

---