Lily Briscoe

Modernist Prose

Study Guide

I was in a huge ballroom for a large party, full of friends, family, acquaintances, and strangers. I held a huge, sloppy scrapbook full of newspaper and magazine clippings, photos, class notes, and other bits of paper. Whenever I put something new into it, like a photo, and closed the covers, something magical would happen. Whatever the image was that I added to the book would come to pass in my dream. For instance, I placed two photos, each containing a picture of someone I know, into the book and closed the covers. Then I opened the book again and saw that the two photos had disappeared and something new had taken its place. It was a picture of both people in it kissing each other. Then I searched the ballroom for those two individuals and was shocked to discover that the two people who were in the photo were kissing.
The next picture I put in the book was a photo of little pigs. Sure enough, after closing the book covers I turned around and saw a sty full of little pigs right in the ballroom. The next time I used the magic book, I put in a few magazine clippings. When I opened the covers, there was a picture of two women (they seemed familiar to me in the dream, but I don't know who they are). One woman, a red head, was pointing a rifle at the other woman, a brunette. The same photo showed the brunette's dead body. After seeing this, I scoured the ballroom frantically, looking for the two women. I didn't find them, but I other people at the party were talking about some shooting that had happened. When I heard this, I started to cry. I felt like the woman's death was my fault because I was fooling around with my magic book.

Warning: The beginning of my dream basically plays out like a cheesy romantic comedy. So if you hate Meg Ryan, please just bear with me.

I think I did pretty well on the practice test, considering that I didn't really study for it and I suck at remembering dates. I do have a pretty good memory at remembering character names, plot details, and themes, so it wasn't hard for me to identify almost all of the fiction passages. But I was mostly unsure about the poetry and historical documents. Now I know what I need to concentrate on the most. Also, I need to review the style and techniques of each historical period so I can more effectively explain my answers. It's one thing to know what the passage is and who wrote it; it's another to know why it exemplifies a certain literary period. I guess I'll be hitting the books pretty hard from now until the 23rd.

I’m in a forest at night. Several other people are wandering through the trees carrying small lanterns to light the way. I stand on the bank of a small stream. Suddenly, a large ashy white tree trunk floats by. The head of a deer is attached to the trunk. There are no branches, but the roots are still attached. The deer has antlers and a soft, gentle wisdom about him. After the white tree passes, I speak to some of the other people in the woods about it. “Did you see it? What does it mean? Where did it come from?” I don't really listen to their replies, because I become so entranced by their appearances. I notice that everyone I talk to has a similar face like the deer. Something about their serene eyes and expressions. I feel that something magical and mystical has happened and I wonder whether my own face has changed as well. I approach the stream so I can look at my reflection, but I wake up before I have the opportunity. Why do my dreams always end at the most important parts? Is my inner censor (as Freud would put it) trying to keep me from some sort of a realization or epiphany?

Me, a blond guy with a titanium skeleton like Wolverine and a kangeroo man—half man, half kangeroo—are being held prisoners by a creepy cult. Apparently they don’t want us to expose their shadowy organization’s crazy medical experiments. Now that we are captured, they want to inject some kind of virus into our veins. The cult doctors approach our cage with a huge syringe. Kangeroo Man starts to have a panic attack. At first, I am defiant—“So what? Give me your damn injection!”—but then I realize that if I want to survive and have a chance at escaping, I have to develop a rapport with our captors. Fortunately, after my fellow prisoners and I calm down, they put away the syringe. They throw Blondie and Kangeroo Man in small padded cells (solitary confinement, I guess). Then they hand me a mop and order me to do their housework since I am a girl.

This dream is about Oprah Winfrey and her best friend Gayle King. I was watching television when I saw an Oprah promo that announced that Gayle had suddenly died. This shocked and saddened me. I felt so bad that Oprah lost her. For a while I didn’t know how she died, then my mom said something like “woman cancer.” I guessed that it was ovarian. Later, I found out on the news that they had discovered Gayle’s dead body in her study. Apparently, no one was aware that she was ill.
For some crazy reason, I ended up coming face-to-face with Oprah. I tried to come up with something to comfort her without sounding cliched. I think I mumbled something about remembering the good times (the biggest cliché), but Oprah seemed not to have heard me. Then she looked up and started to stare into the distance. Oprah quietly said, “She is my soul and I am hers.” I was moved by this deeply intimate statement. Then Oprah walked away. I heard from somewhere (I can’t remember) that Gayle had written a diary. Oprah and her people were planning to publish it. I can’t remember the title, but it was funny and poignant at the same time.

Probably because the subway is my most frequent mode of transportation, I have had many dreams about trains. I’ve had dreams where the platforms move and shift and I have to keep my balance or fall into the tracks. One time I had to jump from one platform to another to get to the right train. In other dreams I don’t even get to the train, because I keep walking down these neverending long dark staircases to get to the subway station, almost as if I’m descending into the underworld. But mostly my train dreams consist of me just missing trains and getting on the wrong one and ending up in the middle of nowhere.

When I was in high school, poetry terrified me because I did not know how to talk about it. I was too scared to try to interpret a poem because I was worried that I would be way off. Now that I know that meaning is just one element of a poem, I have more confidence in writing about it. I find it so much easier to write about poetry now that I know how to analyze a poem’s form and style. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’m good at scansion. I like to look at a poem piece by piece, structure by structure to apreciate the poet’s artistry. The power of a poem is more than its meaning. It’s in each individual carefully-selected word. I think that when writing about poetry, it helps to be patient. Don’t try to rush into it; let the ideas mingle in your mind for a bit before you start making judgments. And above all, don’t be afraid. I’ve learned that if you feel like poetry is intimidating, that it’s some sublime, untouchable piece of genius, you’ll never feel comfortable with analyzing or writing about it.

I took ballet classes when I was twelve. It was my first experience with ballet dancing, and I was a horrible dancer. Even so, I attended every class and performed in the year-end recital. Needless to say, I didn't return the following year. Anyway, I've had a couple of dreams that I'm back in ballet class. These dreams always seem to involve a long complicated dance routine that my class and I are performing in front of a large audience. I am the only dancer that is messing up. I trip over my feet, wobble, and fall on my ass time after time, but no one seems to notice. I can hardly remember a single step of the routine, so I'm just copying the others. I feel so embarassed and humiliated, but I keep on dancing. I know I have to finish the routine for the recital.

Okay, I hope this doesn't freak anybody out, but last night I had a dream that someone in our class died. I don't want to say who, because that would just make that person uncomfortable. Anyway, I dreamed that I was on the blogs when I read a posting that this person died. I was completely shocked and saddened. Everyone was posting comments about how he or she would be missed and how awful the whole situation was. I don't recall exactly how this person died, but someone on the blog mentioned that he or she had a smoking habit. Another blogger said something about our honors exam: "We shouldn't postpone the honors exam. He/She would have wanted us to move forward." In waking life, I do wish that the honors exam would be moved to a later date. That's what I really think the dream is about. It is less about a classmate dying and more about how the honors exam is causing me anxiety.

I know I should have written this earlier, but I've been swamped with assignments. Anyway, the second practice exam made me panic a little. I thought the first one was easy, so I was expecting the second one to be likewise, but it was tougher. I realized that I had been overconfident in preparing for the exam so far, and I had to refocus my efforts. In retrospect, I'm glad that the practice test was harder because it pushed me to study more. Now that the honors exam has come and gone, I realize that it was beneficial for me to lose a little confidence.