dreams and memory theme

Question 1

present world

Answer 1

dark and full of death

only real colour is in the man’s dreams and memories

Question 2

nightmares

Answer 2

just an extension of the present, where the worst has already happened, but in his good dreams the man returns to his happy memories of the past, with nature and his wife

the boys never experienced the previous world, he has no such memories

“your dreams are of some world that never was”

Question 3

dream-memories

Answer 3

are a kind of escapism that he often avoids, as they seem like a temptation to “give up” or die, but at the some time these memories are one of the reasons the man keeps persevering

“carrying the fire” means carrying the memory of a better world

Question 4

unnamed

Answer 4

the characters anonymity makes the boy and man seem more archetypal, but it also offers another glimpse of how the present world has robbed people of their basic humanity and histories

only names of plants and animals exist in the past and dreams

Question 5

brook trout

Answer 5

the book ends with brook trout, but only the man remembers such things, but he’s dead by them

indicates that the remembering of the past has become a separate entity in itself

Question 6

the road

Answer 6

there is only the dark presence of the road, but part of that present can still involve memories and dreams of peace and life

“the right dreams for a man in peril were dreams of peril”

Question 7

sextant

Answer 7

“the colour of it moved something in him long forgotten”

“it was the first thing he’d seen in a long time that stirred him”

Question 8

love for his wife

Answer 8

“memory of her crossing the lawn”