Gender and Freedom Theme Analysis

“Bad Dreams” illustrates the creative freedom people are either encouraged to—or denied ethe opportunity to—seek out due to the societal expectations of their genders. As the story’s protagonist, a young girl, wanders her house in the middle of the night, she observes that her mother has tidied away the sewing equipment and materials she uses daily and that the kitchen is extremely neat. Meanwhile, in the lounge, her father’s trumpet case is open and evidence of his work in progress is out on his desk. This contrast is physical proof of the difference between the mother and father’s activities and habits. Though both parents are creative—the mother with her sewing, and the father with his music and writing—the father seems able to fully indulge in his creative pursuits without concerning himself with their effect on his family, while the mother feels that her duty is to keep the household tidy and organized rather than focus on whatever project she’s working on.

The mother’s perspective sheds light on her frustration at having sacrificed her creative pursuits in order to spend her time caring for her children and looking after the home. Though she went to art school, she was intimidated by the young men there, and it’s implied that that intimidation discouraged her from pursuing painting, which she still considers her rightful vocation. What’s more, her husband’s career even restricts her homemaking: the family can’t move out of the apartment that she’s grown to resent and into their own home until he finishes his degree. Their relationship illuminates the inequalities in creative freedom for men and women. While women and men are equally capable of creative work, women must wrestle with societal limitations that might bar the way to careers and self-expression—limitations that are either irrelevant to their male counterparts or even, sometimes, imposed by them.