Freudian and Jungian Dream Analysis in Dilys Rose's Story

Introduction: Dreaming vs. Reality in the Story

"All the Little Loved Ones" by Dilys Rose clearly functions as an introverted type of art form based upon its structure and presentation. It is a stream-of-consciousness narration in which the mother of several small children speaks about her life directly to the reader. Little happens on a physical level, and the details she narrates are mundane. The primary plot point is the narrator's contemplation of an affair with a man she has met in a park where she takes her children. The children enjoy the swings; she enjoys the outdoor freedom and the idea of something that liberates her from the chains of motherhood. Yet it is unclear whether this liberation is real or imagined. Rose suggests that it does not matter, and that this type of suburban dreaming is perhaps the only viable coping mechanism for an otherwise untenable reality.

The prospective affair clearly has an emotional reality for the woman. The narrator notes of a particularly dreary evening spent with her husband: "tonight, I couldn't even manage my usual… A strange, suspicious little duet would begin in the midst of preparing the dinner and I know where this edgy, halting tune leads, I know the notes by heart" (Rose 80). The prospect of something larger, something more meaningful than her current life haunts her even while she is going through the motions of being a good wife and mother. This sharp discrepancy between the physical and the mental is what makes this a story about dreaming rather than reality.

Freudian Wish Fulfillment and the Imagined Affair

This dream can clearly be read as an act of Freudian wish fulfillment. The introverted nature of the woman's monologue means that we never actually gain access to the perspective of the man with whom she is contemplating an affair. It is entirely possible that he views their interactions as merely an ordinary part of taking his children out for recreation and that he, too, is simply glad to see someone other than small children during this chore. But for the woman, given the lack of excitement in her life and her failure to communicate with her husband, these brief interactions take on much greater significance — a significance that remains masked even to the dreamer herself.

According to Freud, "all dreams are fulfillments of wishes. He argues against the idea that dreams may primarily be concerned with the solution to an intellectual problem, for instance, or with representing a 'worry', or an 'intention', or some other mental product. Even when Freud allows the possibility of anxiety dreams or 'punishment dreams', he still incorporates these within the category of 'wish'. There is something fundamental for Freud about the 'wish'" ("Theory: Freud and Dreams, Part 2," The Freud Museum). The actual impulses of the woman may not be desire for another man but simply a desire to escape her current situation — perhaps for a divorce, or that her husband and children would simply disappear.

The narrator cannot articulate this to herself, much less to her husband, and so instead she contemplates an affair. She worries about an affair, desires an affair, and may even desire to punish her husband for his lack of regard for her and for the meaninglessness of their everyday conversation. She reassures him night after night that things are fine and that the meals he cooks are acceptable, even decent — but like food itself, sexuality in her view must be better than mediocre, better than simply "good." "The stomach too has longings for more than simply to be filled" (Rose 80).

The Id, Ego, and Superego in the Narrator's Desires

Having an affair, according to Freudian analysis, would neatly resolve her desire to be rid of the marriage. If discovered, her husband might leave her — taking the children — thus "solving" the problem of her lack of desire for him, her sexless marriage, and her lack of enthusiasm about motherhood. The impulse of her id is desire for something different, and this is transformed by her ego into desire for a particular person and a means of escape. However, the superego negates this desire for total escape, and the impulse becomes instead a dream.

Jungian analysis, by contrast, would view these characters as archetypes rather than as unique individuals. Interestingly, not only is the woman unnamed, but so are her husband and children. This intensifies the dream-like quality of the short story. The woman has an "everywoman" quality, particularly given the commonness of the problems she cites, such as the absence of meaningful sexuality in her marriage. Quite frequently she says relatively generic things that many women say, such as: "I love my kids. My husband too, though sometimes he asks me whether I do, asks the question do you still love me" (Rose 79).

Jungian Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

One of the most socially unacceptable things a woman can say is that she is uncertain whether motherhood was the right choice, or that she regrets having children and marrying the father of those children. The fact that her husband questions her repetition of these clichés suggests deep unhappiness on the part of the narrator — unhappiness reflected in her impulses toward infidelity in the heart, if not in actual physical practice. Her unhappiness is obvious to her husband; otherwise he would not question it. This is an archetypally unhappy couple being torn apart by the stresses of suburban parenthood, yet they are unable — once again, stereotypically — to question these norms or the expectation that they should always be happy together as a perfect couple.

According to Jung, all people share a kind of collective unconscious: "the ego represents the conscious mind while the personal unconscious contains memories, including those that have been suppressed. The collective unconscious is a unique component in that Jung believed that this part of the psyche served as a form of psychological inheritance. It contains all of the knowledge and experiences we share as a species" (Cherry, "Archetypes"). Every person exhibits a constant, warring tension between the forces of the persona and the animus or anima. The persona is the mask we assume for the outside world. "The persona represents all of the different social masks that we wear among different groups and situations. It acts to shield the ego from negative images. According to Jung, the persona may appear in dreams and take a number of different forms" (Cherry, "Archetypes"). In the case of "All the Little Loved Ones," the narrator's persona is that of the perfect wife and mother — supremely confident and content. Society idealizes women who place their own needs second to their families and makes them feel guilty for satisfying their desires, particularly once they have children.

Children are supposed to be paramount for a couple, not sexual fulfillment — and this expectation falls especially heavily on women. That is why such horror is expressed when women commit acts that harm their children, or even when women simply leave their children because of divorce or the necessity of work. In the story, the narrator is clearly focused on something beyond her children and feels frustrated that she has no space in which to articulate her desires — whether to her husband or to her desired lover. It could even be argued that the creation of the other man is actually a projection of her husband: the man she cannot have as a truly sexual being while still being seen as a good, asexual wife and mother who maintains her exterior persona. There is a constant tension between her outer self and dialogue and her inner self and dialogue. "Practice makes perfect, up and down the same old scales," she notes, as if her conversation with her husband were a performance played by rote or lines read from a script, rather than a spontaneous expression of love (Rose 80).

Conclusion: Dream as Coping Mechanism

The Jungian reading of her dream can thus be seen as a classical warning of the collective unconscious, but also as a validation of finding unity between her masculine and feminine impulses — the longing to embody the selfish self, the sexualized self of male desire, as well as the sexualized female embodiment of desire that serves others and is procreative in nature. By embracing a man with children who seems so similar to herself, this imagined merger seemingly validates the role she is meant to fulfill even while it transgresses the aspects of that role she despises. Yet ironically, the men she lusts after are just as rooted in domesticity as she is, which suggests that even were she to merge with her animus, happiness would not necessarily result.