Hurston and O'Brien both explore the notions of illusions and dreams vs. reality, which begs the question: what is the purpose of dreaming and imagination in life? Where does Maya's story fit into this theme? Does the word "dreamer" have a negative or positive connotation to you? Can using one's imagination or vision make reality better? What happens when there is a huge disparity between the dream and the reality? Can one dream too much? Not enough? What are the consequences of each?
Discuss dreams in the novel you're reading. How closely matched to reality are they? Do dreams help or impede Janie's or Maya's life progress?
I hope that this post is talking about dreams as in aspirations and goals versus what the authors actually accomplished... And since I have no other comments to base this on... Here goes.
ReplyDeleteMaya's story fits the mold of dreams vs. reality with her graduation in Stamps. Maya condemned the speaker for making her race look like its only aspirations was to be like the great sports stars of her generation, while the whites got to become leaders. Maya actually wanted to accomplish things with her education and go places outside of any sports arena society tried to shove her race into. Maya aspired to be successful, and obviously she was considering she was an award-winning author and successful professor.
Dreamer has a positive connotation for me. It means that someone is willing to look past whatever situation he or she finds his or herself in and can find the hope to look towards the future. It is even better when he or she can take that hope and put it into the present to make the future they dream of a reality. When there is a great difference between his or her dream and reality, he or she needs to only look to other people with the same dream in order to help make it a reality. The problem with dreaming too much is that not enough of the energy is put into makes the dreams a reality, but the problem with not dreaming enough is that nothing will ever change or get better.
I don't think it is possible for someone to dream too much or to dream too big. I think having a big imagination can inspire us and give us hope. Maya had dreams to do something big with her life, she wanted to prove to society that she was capable of amazing things. All of her life Maya was told that she us "incapable" because of her background and race, but because she set high goals for herself she was able to achieve greatness.
ReplyDeleteThe word "Dreamer" has a positive connotation to me. It means that someone is aspiring for great things in their life. (In most cases) Like Aubreigh said above, the one thing with dreaming too much is not having the energy or will power to make it a reality. Only then will being "the day dreamer" become something negative.
If I here the word "dreamer", I feel like whoever is the dreamer is having an adventure in life. I don't feel as if it is a negative word to describe/call a person. There are many stages in life and I feel everyone should have a goal/dream to achieve at each stage of their life. However, at the same time, I wouldn't suggest that a person would have a dream that is not stable for their life and have so much hope tied into something that the person depends on the dream to "grant" their life needs. One example of an unstable dream would be if someone is in debt, and they are hoping and dreaming that they win the lottery while at the same time they are not supporting themselves by not working a job. Consequences of an unstable dream can lead to irrational thinking. Consequences of a stable dream can lead to rational thinking and feelings of hope for the future.
ReplyDeleteIn the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie's name fit the characteristic of a dreamer in more ways than one. I feel like Janie's dreams made her think and go through life in a positive way. In Janie's life, I believe that she had a variety of dreams in her life with each marriage that she had. With Logan, I believe that Janie just wanted to break free and have her dream of freedom become a reality and succeed at being free from all the control that Logan put her through. While she was married to Joe, her dream was to become the leading lady of town and have lots of attention be drawn to her and be a social butterfly. When she was married to Tea Cake, I believe that her dream was to just be a loyal wife and succeed at having a romantic relationship with her husband.
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ReplyDeleteI don't think it is possible for someone to dream too much. People need to have hopes and dream so that they have something to work for and look forward too. Without dreams there wouldn't be a very good reason to do most things. The word dreamer to me is good, it means the person knows what they want and have a goal to achieve it. I think that imagination makes life more interesting because you can make things out to be what you want. In the beginning of the novel Janie is not very close to her dreams, she is doing what her grandma wanted her to do, but then she starts to love who she wants and starts living her dream.
ReplyDeleteIn "Their Eyes Were Watching God" Janie's biggest dream was to find love.Having this dream helped Janie get through her first marriage. Although there was never any love Janie kept on hoping there would be and I believe that's what made her press on and not leave her husband right away. Dreaming can make a reality easier to cope with, instead of being down trodden by an event or person one can dream that things will get better and it's what gives them the strength to carry on. Yet dreaming too much can keep a person from moving on to better things. Janie could have left Logan earlier and then moved on to the next stage in her life but she stuck with him because she dreamed of better times. Dreaming can be good and it can be bad, it all depends on the situation and the person.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone calls another person a dreamer, it could be either good or bad. I think that to an extent, its a wonderful thing to have hopes and aspirations that might seem unattainable to others. These things can give you the motivation to achieve your goals. However, like Chelsey said above, some people have irrational dreams. My opinion on the matter is that if you don't have a plan or a drive to achieve the goal, its pointless to dream. But if its something that you plan on attaining, despite what others might think, dreams are wonderful.
ReplyDeleteDreams and imagination help make our lives much better as a whole. Let me use a simple example to demonstrate, every year on christmas eve we all look at the presents and imagine all of the possibilities of what could be in the colorful oddly shaped boxes. It adds so much more excitement to the moment, if everything was left unrapped we would all just go to bed uncurious, bored, and honestly somewhat irritated with the fact that if we knew what we were getting we should just get it already. This may seem silly since we are compareing a Christmas gift to someones entire life but the theory can go a long way. Imagine if on the day you were to be born God took you aside and told you everything that was going to happen in your life and there was nothing you could do to change it. Thenwe would all just sit around waiting to die becauase no matter what we have no actual effect on our lives. Fortunately for us life is much more unpredictable than that, we can all go live with huge hopes and ambitions for what we want to do without knowing the outcome. Our imaginations drive us to keep going up and beyond what we are meant to do. That is why we have so many role models today influencing our lives because they did'nt just want to be okay, they wanted to be the best that they could possibley be with no limit or end it sight for their oppurtunities.
ReplyDeleteDreams are not some little figments that don't exist besides in your sleep. Dreams can be as big or as insane as you want them to be. In I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, Maya doesn't have much to dream of. She's abandoned by her parents at a very young age, and living in a town where no one appreciates her or accepts her, except for Momma and Bailey. But as her story goes on, she just wants to be able to fit in somewhere. She wants to feel like she belongs in Stamps, and she wants people to accept her for who she is. A lot of average people would want this exact same thing. It's not a uniquie dream, but it's unique to her own story.
ReplyDeleteImagination is a amazing thing. The purpose of it is to make life exciting. It increases technology, and makes the world a little more fun. Without imagination or dreams the world would be boring and simple. No art, music, activities, thanks to imagination we have all those. The word dreamer has a negative connotation to me. The reason why is everyone can dream, but can they make that dream possible. Therefore i like the word doer. Reality can be better through imagination. Add a little fun to life and it makes things possible like new inventions. I think there is a point of dreaming to much then there expectations are higher nut if you don't dream enough your life will be lame and you will end up flipping burgers at McDonalds. Janie had a dream of having the right husband and she wanted to fulfill that dream so quick she found the wrong husband twice. Her dream was close to reality when she finally found Tea Cake. Dreams did not really help Janie though.
ReplyDeleteThe purpose of imagination and dreaming is to take you away from where you are in the now.It takes you to a better tomorrow and makes things in life look better, a dream isn't a bad thing especially if they have the attitude that they will accomplish their dreams. When a dreamer realizes that dreams are just out of reach they become very sad, they realize that dreaming isn't always a good thing to fill your mind with, but dreams also are a good thing that take you away like Janie did when she wanted a good true love ever since she was a child and she eventually worked her way through life to then find her love in Tea Cake.
ReplyDeleteI do not believe the word “dreamer” has a negative connotation. Without dreamers there would be no advancements in technologies or medical because there would be no one who has visions of the future to create a product or advancement that would be there. One vision can make reality better because if someone envisioned a safer way to perform a medical procedure it could save many lives. I do believe that someone can dream too much though. This is when someone in visions something that isn’t possible in his time due to insufficient technology. I believe the consequences of a world with no dreamers are no advancements in anything because no one can dream/believe it. Maya’s story fits into this them when she dreams of herself being a conductorette even though there has never been a black conductor. If she would not have dreamt of this she wouldn’t have become that conductorette.
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ReplyDeleteI think that it depends on the dream. Certain dreams can in a way hold you back, you could being going some much farther than what your dream is allowing. Dreams have a funny way of doing that to people, some people reach their dreams and others can't summon up enough energy to accomplish them. In the book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" Maya's dreams help her become the person she became. Her dreams of having a better life keep her going throughout the book. Maya had many obstacles to overcome and her dreams kept her going.
ReplyDeleteI believe being a dreamer is a rather positive connotation, as it shows that the dreamer can look past his or her own reality, and see a better world outside of current reality. However, that's not to say dreams can get a little far-fetched to the point where they are just impossible to perform. Also, if one spends too much time in the dream world, that person doesn't get to spend enough time in reality, and starts losing time to actually commit to change reality to his/her better image, or worse, become too committed with the little time they have left, such as when Janie's grandmother was hurrying to get her married as she dreamed of her daughter getting married and living a good life, and this committal dreaming practically took away Janie's free choice. On the contrary, if one delves too much into reality, one starts to become stuck in its harshness, and it becomes grounded in his/her mind that reality is unchangeable, and a part of dreams's functions is to ease the harshness of current reality, so when one chooses to focus solely on reality, it can be self-destructing to one's vision of the world, and as a result, oneself. A final example of this is when Logan, Janie's first wife, was just convinced of a really terrible reality about the world, that it basically stopped him from aspiring to be a better husband and started to make him berate his wife's works and dreams. That is my take on Dreams vs. Reality
ReplyDeleteI think the word "dreamer" is positive. Everyone has big dreams that they hope to accomplish in life and if you work hard enough you just might get there. Having an imagination and a vision are very important in my opinion. If people didn't have imaginations then I don't even know what the world will be like. Think of people who are architects, writers, designers, movie directors, and countless other jobs. All of those jobs require the person to have a great imagination to do whatever it is they are doing. Having an imagination also does help in certain situations. Think of when you have to speak in front of a large amount of people, there's always a person that would tell me "If you're nervous just imagine everyone in the craziest outfits". That would always make me feel better and it would make the situation easier. In the novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie dreams of having a marriage like the bees and the flowers. In her first two marriages she didn't find that, there was no real love there. Then when she married Tea Cake she finally finds a love that she dreamed of in the beginning of the story.
ReplyDeleteI think dreams do not have a negative connotation. The word "dream" has a happy and positive connotation but the word "nightmare", which is also a dream, does have a negative connotation. In "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", Maya is always dreaming of a better future. She wants to be successful. She dreams of being smart and this pushes her to become second in the eighth grade class. She also dreams of be a conductorette even though no colored girl has ever gotten the job. This pushes her to work hard and get the job.
ReplyDeleteI think dreams do not have a negative connotation. The word "dream" has a happy and positive connotation but the word "nightmare", which is also a dream, does have a negative connotation. In "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings", Maya is always dreaming of a better future. She wants to be successful. She dreams of being smart and this pushes her to become second in the eighth grade class. She also dreams of be a conductorette even though no colored girl has ever gotten the job. This pushes her to work hard and get the job.
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ReplyDeleteIn 'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings' Maya had always been persistent in everything she did. She strived to learn in school even if she isolated herself a little from more small minded people. She was also very pressing when it came to getting a job as a conductorette even when people tried to send her away because she was colored. But eventually she got the job making a little bit of history. She had times where she didn't really believe in herself but she moved forward and kept pushing knowing a brighter future would come.
In my own personal opinion I think dreams are the very things that keep us alive and sane as people. They give us something to reach for in life and during the times where we feel like we can't keep going they give us the hope of a different and better tomorrow that we've all wanted. Some people view dreams as too far fetched and unrealistic and yes some may be but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have those dreams. If you work hard enough you can make your dreams literally into reality that isn't just inside your mind.