Читать книгу The Erotic Motive in Literature - Albert Mordell - Страница 15

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Kipling's dream story The Brushwood Boy is a very good confirmation of Freud's theories. We will analyse it psychoanalytically; it will be seen that the artificial dream in it is inspired by the same causes as real dreams are. The story was published in the Century Magazine, December, 1895, and appeared in book form in 1901, a year after Freud's great work on Dreams had been issued. Kipling had no knowledge of Freud's theories, but he shows his hero suffering an unconscious repression; Georgie saw for many years visions of a girl he had met in childhood and apparently forgotten. He dreamed of her often and these dreams give us an insight into the hero's anxieties and longings.

Georgie, the Brushwood Boy, dreamed at the age of three of a policeman. At the age of six he had both day and night dreams which always began with a pile of brushwood near the beach. There was a girl he saw at the pile of brushwood who merged with a princess he saw in an illustration of Grimm's Fairy Tales. He called her Annie-an-louise. At the age of seven he saw at Oxford, on a visit, a girl who looked like the child in the illustrations of Alice in Wonderland, and he flirted with her. He went to India as a young man. In his dreams he saw the old policeman of his infant dreams, who was saying, "I am Policeman Day coming back from the city of Sleep." One day in a dream he stepped into a steamer, and saw a stone lily floating on the water. He met the same girl of his early dreams at the Lily Lock and they took a pony on the Thirty Mile Road. He often dreamed of her and in his dreams was happy when with her and unhappy when away from her. When he got back to England he heard a girl guest at his house sing a song of Policeman Day and the City of Sleep, and he guessed that it was she who wrote the music and composed the song. Her name was Miss Lacy; she was the girl he met as a child at Oxford. He took a ride with her and each found that the other had dreamed the same dreams. She knew all about the Thirty Mile Road and she had once kissed him in his sleep. At that very moment he had dreamed that she had bestowed the kiss. Each had cherished the other as an ideal, now to be realised, in marriage.

What is the meaning of this story? How did Georgie come to love a girl he had known apparently only in his dreams? Where does the Policeman come in and what is the secret of the dream journeys on the Thirty Mile Road? Georgie's dreams were the fulfilment of his unconscious desires in waking life. He had actually seen his love in his childhood, was attracted towards her but apparently forgot about her. But the love was there nevertheless; it was repressed. He neither knew why he dreamed of her nor did he believe she actually existed. He conjured her up in the books he read and identified her with the princess of the fairy tales. Like the neurotic patient he did not know the cause of his anxieties; he could not fit altogether in the scheme of life; he was dreaming inexplicable dreams which were having an effect upon him in his waking hours. In a case like this we know that the dreams have a reality that makes them almost equivalent to events of the day. When he took those trips with her in his sleep he was fulfilling the unconscious wishes of his waking life. He suffered nightmares when anything interfered to take him away from her. The anxiety dream as Freud has explained shows that there has been an interference with the satisfying of the love desire.

Policeman Day is the cause of terror because he represents the time when the dreams do not occur, day time, when he becomes the symbol of love unrealised, for in the day Georgie is no longer with his love. Policeman Day is consciousness opposed to unconsciousness, reality opposed to illusion. Miss Lacy also felt this when she sang the song with the refrain,

Oh pity us! Ah, pity us!

We wakeful! Oh, pity us!

We that go back with Policeman Day

Back from the City of Sleep.

She also was with Georgie in her dreams and dreaded waking. He also was present in her unconscious and she never really forgot the boy she had met as a child, although she had no conscious memory of him. Their infantile impressions were powerful and ruled them all the time till they met again. They dreamed they were with each other because they wanted to be with each other. He guessed she wrote the poem because she had felt as he did. The poem was an anxiety poem, voicing the unconscious desire to be with the loved one. It represents the state of mind of both lovers; he had also felt the sentiments of the poem, but she put them in words. When he came back to England he was unconsciously going to find the ideal of his dreams, the original Annie-an-louise. When he found her he was cured of his dreams and anxieties. Their meeting acted like a cure for their mysterious longings. All their dreams were made up of infantile fantasies and represented repressions. The marriage satisfies these repressions.

I dare say Kipling was his own model for the Brushwood Boy.

This disposes of any interpretations based on mere mental telepathy between George and Miss Lacy. They had the same feelings because they suffered the same repression and had met and loved each other in infancy.

Among other dream stories by Kipling, two of the best are They and The Dream of Duncan Parrenness.