The Dreaming Tree

Standing here,
The old man said to me,
"Long before these crowded streets,
Here stood my dreaming tree."
Below it he would sit,
For hours at a time.
Now progress takes away,
What forever took to find.
And now he's falling hard,
He feels the falling dark.
How he longs to be,
Beneath his dreaming tree.

Conquered fear to climb,
A moment froze in time,
When the girl who first he kissed,
Promised him she'd be his.
Remembered mother's words,
There beneath the tree,
"No matter what the world
You'll always be my baby."
Mommy, come quick!
The dreaming tree has died.
The air is growing thick,
A fear he cannot hide,
The dreaming tree has died.

Oh, have you no pity?
This thing I do,
I do not deny it.
All through this smile.
As crooked as danger,
I do not deny,
I know in my mind,
I would leave you now.
If I had the strength to,
I would leave you up,
To your own devices,
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much,
But won't you speak, please?

From the start,
She knew she had it made,
Easy up 'til then,
For sure she'd make the grade.
Adorers came in hordes,
To lay down in her wake,
Gave it all she had,
But treasures slowly fade.
Now she's falling hard,
Feels the fall of dark,
How did this fall apart?
She drinks to fill it up.
A smile of sweetest flowers,
Wilted so and soured.
Black tears stain the cheeks,
That once were so admired.
She thinks when she was small,
There on her father's knee,
How he had promised her,
"You'll always be my baby."
Daddy, come quick!
The dreaming tree has died.
I can't find my way home,
There is no place to hide
The dreaming tree has died.

Oh, if I had the strength to,
I would leave you up,
To your own devices,
Will you not talk?
Can you take pity?
I don't ask much.
But won't you speak, please?

Take me back,
Save me, please.

-"Dreaming Tree" by Dave Matthews Band

A link to open the song in the itunes music store:

Where's the Self-Worth?

By the time Gregor’s metamorphosis takes place, he has completely forgotten how to live his life for himself. Thoughts about how to take care of his family litter the short story, while any thoughts about what he truly wants are rare and often repressed. Even as a human, Gregor had become insect-like in his need to please his family; as an insect, these same thoughts dominate his actions and eventually take his life.

Oddly, when Gregor awakens one morning to discover that he has become a giant bug, his first thoughts are about how he will continue to support his family rather than how such a strange event came to take place. He seems hardly confused; he is more preoccupied with finding a way to get out of bed so that he can catch the train to work. He feels a strange responsibility for his family. Gregor clearly believes that they are there to support him in return, as is evident when he finally gets out of bed and is trying to unlock the door, “And, imagining that they were all intently following his efforts, he grimly clamped his jaws on the key with all his might” (24). Unfortunately, he has placed too much faith in his family. Rather than supporting him, they all flee at the mere sight of him, then force him brutally back into his room; they have no compassion for the fact that their son has just awoken to find that he is no longer human. Still, Gregor seems unaware of the harsh treatment. When he discovers that his sister has left him a bowl of milk, but that it is no longer to his taste, he wonders, “would she noticed that he’d let the milk sit there…? If she wasn’t going to do it on her own, he’d sooner starve than call her attention to it” (38). For some reason, Gregor has no sympathy for himself, and he doesn’t seem to expect any from his family either.

Gregor’s sense of responsibility for the well being of his family seems a likely culprit for his lack of self-concern. Throughout the story, we learn that Gregor’s father owes a large debt to a company because his own had failed, and yet Gregor is the only one working to pay off said debt. As he is lying in bed, undaunted by his new body, he has a brief moment of his own emotion when he says, “If I didn’t have to curb my tongue because of my parents, I’d have…. Gone up to the director and told him from the bottom of my heart exactly what I thought. That would have knocked him from his desk!” (5). However, only a few moments later, he thoughtlessly puts his lazy family before his own dreams and feelings and thinks, “Well, there’s hope yet; as soon as I’ve saved enough money to pay back what my parents owe him—that should take another five or six years—I’ll go do it for sure” (5). Gregor is so used to putting himself second, we can only imagine that his family sees him the same way. Even as an insect, Gregor takes special care to hide himself under a couch, sometimes with a sheet over him, so that his family will not have to bear the sight of him. They care nothing for his feelings, and eventually, they even begin to forget about him. Perhaps, as time goes by that Gregor remains a bug, they associate it less and less with him because they never really took the time to know him at all. By the end, despite everything Gregor has selflessly done for his family, his sister declares, “You just have to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor…. If it were, he would’ve realized a long time ago that it’s impossible for human beings to live wit ha creature like that, and he would’ve left on his own accord” (85). She doesn’t pause for a moment to think that after such a traumatic transformation, Gregor might desperately need the love and support of his family. Instead, feeling useless and unwanted, Gregor retreats to his room and wills himself to die before morning. (703)

Fatal Flaw

Ivan Ilych spends his dying moments regretting the life he has lived. Though he lived his life in the pursuit of what he thought would make him happy, the lack of passion with which he did so proved to be his fatal flaw. Though the way he conducted his life adhered to the social norm, Ivan Ilych comes to realize in his last days how shallow and meaningless such a life really is.

From the very start, we as readers know that there is nothing special about Ivan Ilych’s life. The author, Leo Tolstoy, introduces the main character’s life story by saying that it, “had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (55). His childhood is only grazed over, and the focus is placed instead on how quickly he tries to become an adult. Oddly enough, we learn about Ivan Ilych’s death in the first chapter, but we hear very little about his childhood until the second-to-last chapter. Tolstoy initially introduces Ivan’s youth by saying, “all the enthusiasms of childhood and youth passed without leaving much trace on him” (58), but when Ivan reflects on his life, he thinks of his childhood as the “one bright spot there at the back, at the beginning of life, and afterwards, all becomes blacker and blacker” (312). Unfortunately, the moment he graduates from the School of Law, he forgets all about what he will one day realize was his “bright spot” and sets out to become a person of high station. Ironically, in the midst of his preparations—such as ordering clothes from the “fashionable tailor” (60)—he places a medallion on his watch-chain that reads in Latin “Think of the end (of your life).” What would have been good advice is only a fashion statement to Ivan Ilych, however, and he sets off to make his career.


For the rest of his life, the main character causes his own misery. He is a shallow and passionless man, obsessed with work and what is socially accepted. For example, the only reasons he marries Praskovya Fedorovna is because “it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates”(70) and because “when the girl fell in love with him he said to himself: “Really, why shouldn’t I marry?””(69). As soon as his married life becomes more complicated and doesn’t fit into his easygoing lifestyle, he chooses to avoid it by engrossing himself in work rather than working out problems with his wife. However, there is reason to believe Ivan Ilych has found his match: his shallow behavior towards her during their early marriage is paralleled by her shallow behavior towards him while he is dying. The author conveys Ivan’s detached behavior when he says, “…and with the real and imaginary illnesses of mother and child, in which Ivan Ilych’s sympathy was demanded but about which he understood nothing, the need of securing for himself an existence outside his family life became still more imperative”(75). When Ivan lies dying, however, he longs, “for someone to pity him as a sick child his pitied. He longed to be petted and comforted” (218). Perhaps, if he had attended to Praskovya Fedorovna with sympathy and love while she was ill, she would have shown him the same care in his dying days. The saddest part of the story is the fact that Ivan Ilych finally realizes, “Maybe I did not live as I ought to have done” (304), but by that time, it is too late to change his life. He cannot go back and create closer personal relationships with his family and friends, rather than surrounding himself in nothing but work and games of bridge. Perhaps he could have befriend people not only of high stations; realized that his wife “expected him to devote his whole attention to her”(72) in early years of their marriage because she wanted a close relationship with him; or even just dwelt a little bit longer in his childhood. Unfortunately, it is only with his dying breaths that Ivan Ilych apologizes to his wife and son, knowing that he had lost the opportunity to lead a meaningful life. (692)