Blog Post #1: "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities:" Three Moments

For my story of choice, I read "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities" by Delmore Schwartz. The story is about a young man, the narrator of the story, who is dreaming about the beginning of his parents' relationship. In the dream, the story of the parents is portrayed as a movie, "an old Biograph one, in which the actors are dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes," (Schwartz 473). The narrator is watching the movie in a theater in the dream and repeatedly causes disturbances in reaction to the story, eventually getting himself kicked out from the theater, after which he promptly wakes up. I found this story very intriguing and there were many moments that could be given a second look.

1. the moment when the man is so overwhelmed by the sun and the ocean, and so shocked by his parents' indifference towards them, that he begins crying and must leave the movie theater 
This moment was very confusing. Many of the other moments in the story fit in with the context of the story, but this moment just seemed completely out of place. By the end of the story, we are aware that the main character is having emotional reactions to his parents' story, but this time, his reaction seems to be to the ocean and the sun, rather than directly to his parents. Something could be made of this moment if it were to be more closely analyzed.

2. the moment when the parents are getting their photographs taken and the photographer keeps putting them in different poses, to the point where the narrator begins to relate to him
The fact that the narrator is able to relate to and "approve of" the photographer says something about the point of the story and why the narrator is even having this movie-dream in the first place. Why, of the few characters in the story, could the narrator relate to the photographer, the man whose intention is to keep his pride by taking beautiful pictures, and as a result, is physically changing the positions of the parents?

3. the moment when the usher drags the narrator out of the movie theater and gives him a sort of reality check
This moment marks the transition between the narrator's dream and real life. As he is kicked out of the theater and into the cold, he wakes up from the dream, but not before he is told off by the usher. The usher tells the narrator that everything he does matters too much, and that there's something he must do. This one moment makes us question the entire purpose of the story. The narrator's dream was not random. It has a meaning that the narrator must figure out and act upon. The narrator's purpose is what ties together all the other mysterious moments in the story.