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The girl lives in the basement apartment where the short story takes place with her mother, father, and younger brother. She loves to read—especially her favorite book, Swallows and Amazons—and she spends a great deal of time in her own imagination, either by herself or recreating scenes from the same book with her school friends. The girl is just beginning to understand the rich details of the lives of those around her, as she demonstrates when she ponders her parents’ histories, but this richness can sometimes seem horrific to her. The idea that her beloved youthful characters would grow old and die in the imaginary, dreamed epilogue of her book is something she doesn’t dare to voice aloud. In this way, the character of the girl highlights how imagination can threaten as much as it can delight. The girl’s decision not to call out to her mother about her bad dream demonstrates that she has come to learn the freedom that secrecy can provide, but it also emphasizes how secrecy can weaken relationships.
The Girl Quotes in Bad Dreams
The Bad Dreams quotes below are all either spoken by The Girl or refer to The Girl. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Bad Dreams
Quotes
Something had happened, she was sure, while she was asleep. She didn’t know what it was at first, but the strong dread it had left behind didn’t subside with the confusion of waking. Then she remembered that this thing had happened inside her sleep, in her dream.
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Susan lived to a ripe old age. Susan was the dullest of the Swallows, tame and sensible, in charge of cooking and housekeeping. Still, the idea of her ‘ripe old age’ was full of horror: wasn’t she just a girl, with everything ahead of her?
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When she was younger she had called to her mother if she woke in the night, but something stopped her from calling out now: she didn’t want to tell anyone about this. Once the words were said aloud, she would never be rid of them; it was better to keep them hidden.
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She had read about moonlight, but had never taken in its reality before; it made the lampshade of Spanish wrought iron, which had always hung from a chain in the hallway, seem suddenly as barbaric as a cage or a portcullis in a castle.
[…] sometimes she felt a pang of fear for her father, as if he were exposed and vulnerable […]. She never feared in the same way for her mother: her mother was capable; she was the whole world.
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The reality of the things in the room seemed more substantial to the child than she was herself—and she wanted in a sudden passion to break something, to disrupt this world of her home, sealed in its mysterious stillness, where her bare feet made no sound on the lino or the carpets.
Get the entire Bad Dreams LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Girl Quotes in Bad Dreams
The Bad Dreams quotes below are all either spoken by The Girl or refer to The Girl. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Bad Dreams
Quotes
Something had happened, she was sure, while she was asleep. She didn’t know what it was at first, but the strong dread it had left behind didn’t subside with the confusion of waking. Then she remembered that this thing had happened inside her sleep, in her dream.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Susan lived to a ripe old age. Susan was the dullest of the Swallows, tame and sensible, in charge of cooking and housekeeping. Still, the idea of her ‘ripe old age’ was full of horror: wasn’t she just a girl, with everything ahead of her?
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Explanation and Analysis:
When she was younger she had called to her mother if she woke in the night, but something stopped her from calling out now: she didn’t want to tell anyone about this. Once the words were said aloud, she would never be rid of them; it was better to keep them hidden.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
She had read about moonlight, but had never taken in its reality before; it made the lampshade of Spanish wrought iron, which had always hung from a chain in the hallway, seem suddenly as barbaric as a cage or a portcullis in a castle.
[…] sometimes she felt a pang of fear for her father, as if he were exposed and vulnerable […]. She never feared in the same way for her mother: her mother was capable; she was the whole world.
Related Characters:
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The reality of the things in the room seemed more substantial to the child than she was herself—and she wanted in a sudden passion to break something, to disrupt this world of her home, sealed in its mysterious stillness, where her bare feet made no sound on the lino or the carpets.
