DREAM CHILDREN A REVERIE BY CHARLES LAMB QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

 

 

                           DREAM CHILDREN: A REVERIE- NOTES

 

Question 1

Who are Alice and John?

Answer: Lamb’s imaginary children

 

Question 2.

What sort of relations had Iamb with his brother?

Answer: He loved his brother.

 

Question 3.

What is Lethe?

Answer: a river in Hades

 

Question 4.

What was the immediate cause of the composition of the essay “Dréam Children:

A Reverie”?

Answer: The death of his brother.

 

Question 5.

Which of the following fruits is not mentioned by Lamb that grew in the garden , in the Norfolk House?

Answer: apple.

 

Question 6.

Who according to Lamb, was the best dancer during her youth?

Answer: Mrs. Field

 

 

Question 1

Write a character sketch of Lamb’s grandmother.

Answer:

Lamb’s grandmother had a pleasing personality. She was highly religious. She was beloved and respected by everybody. She was very particular and prompt in her duties. She was fond of children and always enjoyed to be with them during holidays. She was tall, upright and graceful. She was a good dancer and was so popular among the commoner that her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor and some of the gentry of the neighbourhood from miles away.

 

Question 2.

What sort of a person was John Lamb? How did Lamb admire him?

Answer:

John Lamb had some good sort of personality. He was extremely handsome and spirited young man. All the children loved him and he loved them too. He was kind and helpful. He usually helped the writer by carrying him on his back. He was careful about the big house and the garden. Later, in his life, he was in great pain, still he lived with enthusiasm.

 

Question 3.

What are the similarities between Alice, the mother and Alice, the daughter?

Answer:

As the writer was in dream about his family, he was lost in thought. Alice was his daughter and John was his son, in fact imaginary. He observed some similarities between Alice the daughter and Alice the mother, the representation of her eye and her bright hair are similar.

 

Question 4.

Describe the cremation of grandmother Field.

Answer:

Field was a graceful lady with all generosity and kindness. She was loved and respected by all. She was highly religious, so she was very popular among people. When she died, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, some of the gentry also came and make their presence. They all came from neighbourhood from many miles away to show their respect in her memory.

 

Question 5.

Describe how Lamb used to move about in the garden of the great house.

Answer:

Lamb was a peculiar child. He never liked to be in a company. So, he usually spent his time alone. He used to roam in the big mansion. He also walked along the big, spacious old-fashioned garden, where he sometimes met with the solitary man, gardening, who never liked him roam in the garden or allowed him pluck any flower or fruit.

 

Question 6.

Who did grandmother Field love the best among the Lamb brothers and why?

Answer:

Grandmother Field was a graceful lady. She loved all the children. She always wished to be with all their grand-children in the great house in holidays but she had special love, and attention for John. Lamb, because he was very handsome and spirited young man. He also moped about in solitary comers and cared the great garden of the great house.

 

Question 7.

Why does Lamb say that though grandmother Field was not the owner of the house ‘yet in some respect she might be said to be the mistress of it too’?

Answer:

Lamb’s grandmother Field was a very popular lady living in a great house in Norfolk. She was highly attached with the house. Lamb says that she was not, the mistress of the house. She was only in charge of it, because she was committed to it by its owner who preferred living in a newer house. Still she lived in it, in a manner as if it was her own. She maintained the dignity of the house.

 

 

Question 1.

Justify the statement that ’Dream Children: A Reverie’ is a lyric in prose.

Answer:

Dream Children: A Reverie is an outburst of a flow of imagination of Charles Lamb. Lamb was said to be the Prince of English essayists. He wrote this essay when he was nearing his fifties. As his life was not at all happy and comfortable, he towards the end of his life, has expressed his dreams which couldn’t be fulfilled during his lifetime. He had suffered a lot in his life. He himself was lame. His elder brother whom he loved so much died in great pain.

 

He missed him because he usually carried him on his back when he could not walk. In his youth, Lamb had a disappointing love-affair with a girl who afterwards married another man. He was a bachelor. He lived in utter loneliness. Though he wanted a family and children but they were denied to him in his actual life. In this essay, he is dreaming for having two children, on both of his sides behaving like real . children. Although the story has created a moving life situation which has all the elements of a lyric. This is a flow which makes one completely engrossed with the story.

 

 

Question 2.

In ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’ Lamb has woven fiction around certain facts of his life. Illustrate this statement from the essay.

Answer:

Dream Children: A Reverie is a typical essay written by Charles Lamb. The main theme of the essay is woven around certain facts of Lamb’s life. His life was very pathetic. He was a lame and suffered a lot. He was very much attached with his elder brother John who also became lame in his later life. He was in great pain when he died. The writer was deeply distressed with this incident. He always wished for a family. Once he was in love with a girl but afterwards, she denied to marry him. He lived a bachelor life. He also wanted children but he was denied of a family and children. This story is an imagination that he could never see as being fulfilled.

 

Question 3.

Discuss the element of pathos in the essay ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’.

Answer:

Dream Children: A Reverie presents an unfulfilled desire of the essayist, Charles Lamb. Lamb’s life was a tragic one. He was physically not sound. He earnestly wished for a family and children. But he could not get any. He loved his elder brother very much who also suffered great pain. Lamb was in great pain to see his elder brother dying slowly in great pain. Everywhere in the essay, Lamb has tried to reveal the real tragedy of his life. It is really a very touching essay.

 

Question 4.

Write a summary of the essay ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’ in your own words.

Answer:

This is a story of a dream of a life which the writer couldn’t have. Children are usually fond of listening to the stories of their ancestors. The writer’s children (in fact imaginary) came closer to him to know about their great grandmother Field who lived in a great house in Norfolk. The writer continued to say interesting facts about Field. Field was a highly religious lady loved and respected by all. She was in fact not the mistress of the great house but just a caretaker of it, still she lived with dignity. When she died, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor and some of the gentry too, of the neighborhood. They came from many miles to show their respect in her memory.

 

Further, the writer said that Field was tall, upright and graceful. She was an esteemed dancer in her youth. Later she suffered from the deadly disease, cancer which put her in pain. But she was still upright, as she was so good and religious.

 

Field used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great house. She usually believed that two infants used to glide up and down the great staircase near where she slept during midnight. The writer was scared for he never saw any infant. However, Field was always very good to all her grandchildren. She liked to have all the children with her in the house during holidays. The writer enjoyed his loneliness even there. He was always alone in himself even there in the house of the grandmother.

 

Then the writer told John and Alice, the two children who were taking much interest in the story that the grandmother loved all the grand children with joy but she had special attention to John L. John L was very handsome and spirited youth. He loved the great house and took care of the garden. He used to carry the writer on his back, for he was a bit older than the writer.

 

It was because the writer was lame and couldn’t walk long. Later, he himself became lame and was in great pain. His painful death haunted the writer for long. The writer missed him much; for he had loved him too. He missed his brother’s kindness, closeness and wished him to be alive again to be quarrelling with him.

 

The children cried to listen to the stories about their pretty dead mother. The writer continued that he courted the fair Alice W-N, but when he explained how he was denied of the marriage, what pain had to suffer the children great emotional. They thought and realized that they were not real children born of the writer and Alice W-N. They were nearly dreaming. The writer was awakened and there was no one around him neither John nor Alice.

 

Question 5.

Justify the title of the essay, ‘Dream Children: A Reverie’.

Answer:

The title of the essay, Dream Children: A Reverie is very appropriate in the context of its theme. The writer tries to unfold his unfulfilled desire. For this, he creates the images of two children who act in a real manner. He tells them all his memories of life. He utterly desired to have a family and children which was never fulfilled. The situation of the essay appears to be a real-life situation. He shows similarity between Alice the Mother and Alice the daughter. He also shows similarity of fair hair between the two and through the children he reveals and satisfies the realities of his life.

 

D. Explain the following:

 

Question 1.

Children love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, grandame, whom they never saw.

Answer:

These lines are the exposition of a common phenomena. The writer reveals that children are fond of listening to adventurous tales and tales about old generation. These stories thrill them. They are also curious to know about their own ancestors. It is a way that they wish to be familiar with their own past glory, prestige, etc.

 

Question 2.

I missed his kindness and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to ‘ be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without, him, as he their poor uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb.

Answer:

Through this, Lamb is blurring the line of fiction and reality. The uncle in the story coincides with the brother of Lamb. Here Lamb reveals his feeling about his elder brother. His elder brother was a handsome youth and a love some figure. He was always helpful to the writer. He used to carry Lamb on his back as Lamb was unable to walk long for being lame. Sometimes, he got angry and quarrelled with him. Still he was helpful. He was a man of all good qualities. So, Lamb missed him much. Fiction gets woven around facts,

 

 

 

Question 3.

‘We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice called 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’.

Answer:

These lines reveal the realities of this story. In the whole story, Lamb has created such a realisite atmosphere that everything appears to be happening in life. In fact, it is mere fantasy. He has exposed his desires through imagination. He neither had a family nor children. John and Alice are his dream children. When in the end, Lamb tells them that he could never get married the children are made to feel that they are creation of Lamb’s imagination. In the meantime, the writer is awaken and everything is finished.