Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, a collection of
poignant vignettes about one summer in the life of 12-year old Douglas
Spaulding, is a powerful mirror into childhood, growing up, and life in
general. Bradbury, generally considered one of the Grand Masters of science
fiction, did not in fact write science fiction. While his books and stories had
some of the overtones of science fiction, their themes went much deeper than
simple space opera or shoot-'em-up action. His books were often quite
surrealistic and were very emotional. (Wolfheim 42) Critiquing Bradbury is
difficult as it dulls the fantasy, and it is usually better to concentrate on
what Bradbury himself wrote rather
than archetypally analyze the book to truly
enjoy and understand his fantasy. (Bradford 69) In Dandelion Wine, Bradbury's
deeper themes mainly have to do with the world of inner feelings of fantasy and
the soul. Three sets of opposite characteristics that have a strong influence
over feelings and the soul contribute to
the depth and character of Dandelion Wine: life and death, heaven and hell, and
the past and the future.
The themes of life and death become entwined
with raw fantasy in Dandelion Wine. One of the first experiences of young
Douglas Spaulding is to realize that the pure, unbridled energy, emotion, and
fantasy of the summer make him truly alive. (Bradford 69) The pure,
unadulterated fantasy of life and joy in Dandelion Wine gives a more than
magical feeling to the book and leaves the reader wishing that he or she lived in
this world. (Bradford 69) One of the reasons that the fantasy of Dandelion Wine
is so appealing is that Bradbury masterfully crafts the expressions of fantasy
that everyone takes part in, such as dreams and the inner world of the mind,
into a recognizable whole and masterfully expresses it in Dandelion Wine.
Fantasy comes easily to Douglas Spaulding, shown by fact that that realization
that he, along with everything else, is truly Alive. This realization heightens
his senses and expectations of the summer to come. But along with fantasy,
happiness, magic, and life comes death. Death plays a major role in Dandelion
Wine as the Unseen One, a semi-mythical murderer and kidnapper, takes people
from the town and hideously mutilates them in a deep, dark, and fearsome
ravine. While we do not directly see the Unseen One, his dread exploits are
often mentioned. Douglas takes little heed of the warnings and goes on life as
always, but the adults seem deeply troubled by the presence of the Unseen One.
The presence of death seems to be equalled out by the mystical, magical fantasy
of Douglas' summer. (Bradford 69)
Douglas seems to not take as much notice of death and it seems to have a lesser
thrall over him because of his fantasy.
While death does not necessarily seem wonderful to Douglas, he notes it along
with everything else in his fantastical summer, and Ray Bradbury expertly gives
the same sense of wonderment to death as he gives to life. (Bradford 69)
The ravine that divides the center of town in
Dandelion Wine, bringer of death and home of the Unseen One, is also Bradbury's
metaphorical Hell in Dandelion Wine. While one of Dandelion Wine's vignettes
has many of the elements of the archetypal Snow White story, the character of
Prince Charming is noticeably missing. (Rosenman 85) In this vignette, Lavinia
Nebbs, the most beautiful woman in Green Town, must cross the ravine at night
and return safely home. The crossing of the ravine at night is extremely
dangerous and Lavinia spends a lot of time in complete and total darkness and
with quite a bit of fear before she finally makes it home and can bar her door
against the evil of the night. (Rosenman 84) The presentation of the archetype
is very similar to the Greek Persephone myth in that the Satan figure comes to Earth
to try to imprison Eve in Hell. (Rosenman 84) Lavinia Nebbs represents that
archetypal figure of Eve from the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden,
and in most modern stories that build on the Garden of Eden / Fall / Heaven and
Hell archetype, the Eve character must somehow understand herself much better
than previously to understand her dark, evil, inner core. This exploration is
not explored on the surface by Bradbury, but Lavinia's aloneness in the ravine
almost certainly causes Lavinia to think about her life, and reflect on her
inner soul. (Rosenman 85)
This sort of
exploration in Bradbury's Hell can be analyzed psychologically from a Jungian
point of view. What Hell does, according to Jung, is to bring out the shadow
traits of a person. (Rosenman 85) The shadow traits are repressed emotions and
characteristics of a person that rarely show up, but can be expressed in times
of severe need or stress. The characteristics are often opposite to normally
expressed feelings. Hell is also a coming-together place for the fears that all
people have as expressed through a collective subconscious which all people
share. (Rosenman 85) Another important characteristic of the ravine is that it
splits the town in half. This represents an archetypal viewpoint of a continual
war of good against evil that neither side will ever truly win. (Rosenman 85)
This archetypal viewpoint is further represented by many parallels of
Bradbury's ravine to classical notions of hell. The ravine contains many images
commonly associated with Hades, the Greek equivalent of Hell. (Rosenman 85) It
is dark, deep, and dangerous. While the ravine is not underground, it is
certainly deeper and lower than the town. Furthermore, the ravine is
represented as containing the classical notions of Hell as a certain part of
creation as well as Hell as the cause of lost innocence. (Rosenman 85) The
ravine gnaws at and insidiously erodes the down, gradually moving it towards
its eventual destruction at the hands of the great danger held within.
It has been postulated that Bradbury's work
has been influenced by that of William Faulkner. Bradbury may have obtained his
idea for the use of the heaven and hell archetype from one of Faulkner's works,
"That Evening Sun". (Rosenman 85) Both Faulkner and Bradbury use many
classical allusions to various mythical figures, especially to those figures
central to the Heaven and Hell archetype, including Eve, Satan, and Hell.
(Rosenman 85) Furthermore, each of the writers use a theme of initiation of the
main character into some ritual, into a more grown-up flavour of life. In
addition, both Bradbury and Faulkner seem to have an innate distrust of
machines and technology, a somewhat common theme in literature. Both Dandelion
Wine and "That Evening Sun" end with the image of a setting sun-
perhaps foreshadowing technological disaster or otherwise. (Rosenman 85)
However, these themes are quite common in a literary sense and may not
represent a direct influence on Bradbury by Faulkner.
The theme of
initiation comes into play with the theme of conflict between the past and
future. Bradbury is perhaps the most studied writer who uses this as one of his
common themes. (Stupple 69) The conflict between the past and the future,
stasis and change, is one of Bradbury's unique trademarks. (Stupple 69) In
Dandelion Wine, this conflict is primarily expressed between things changing or
staying the same, and the pros and cons of each. (Stupple 69) This conflict is
shown to the reader through the magical and fantastic summer of Douglas
Spaulding as he experiences various philosophical and psychological conflicts
Douglas' past and present are very complex, containing multiple dimensions and
layers of memories, nostalgia, fun, and mischief. (Stupple 70) Bradbury's past
has the power to create or destroy,
encourage or discourage, give hope or despair, comfort or threaten.
Dandelion Wine is much like another of his books, The Martian Chronicles, in
that progress and change are essential to avoid complete and total annihilation
of all that is important. (Stupple 70) The impression is given to the reader
the past is quite tempting but ultimately fatal. In Dandelion Wine, Bradbury
more fully explores all the implications of this theme than in the earlier
work, The Martian Chronicles. Douglas is much less confident of the fact that
change is essential as compared to the characters from Martian Chronicles.
(Stupple 70) Not only does he doubt the future, but once he does realize the
future is the right path, he never becomes convinced that the future is as
overwhelmingly better than the past, as it is shown to be in the Martian
Chronicles. Furthermore, Dandelion Wine is interesting in that Douglas becomes
able to face the future because of his use of a specific item from the past-
dandelion wine. This concoction allows those who are stuck in the middle of
winter to experience the joy and beauty of summertime. This drink of
"bottled stasis" allows Douglas to move towards the future. (Stupple
69) This implementation of the past-future conflict does not quite make sense.
Bradbury's confusing message seems to show that Douglas celebrates the past
while he moves on towards the vastly better future, a message that does not
make sense. (Stupple 69) The odd mixing of the dichotomies of stasis and change,
the past and the future, cause Bradbury's Dandelion Wine to be somewhat
confusing. In order to rectify this confusion, an explanation of Bradbury's
motives in writing Dandelion Wine is needed. One theory is that Dandelion Wine
is an outlet for the confusion of the middle class over the relative value of
the future over the past. It creates a vague feeling of nostalgia that would
certainly appeal to this older, middle-class audience that Bradbury may have
targeted it towards. (Stupple 70) One of the messages it seems to convey the
message that people can be scared of yet strangely attracted towards
technological change. Whatever the reasons for Bradbury's use of the
past-future theme, it is a unique part of his art form and a component part of
his own personality and history. (Stupple 70) Bradbury's past-future
speculations have depth. They show that a "denial of the past demands a
denial of that part of the self which is the past." (Stupple 70) Bradbury
himself recognizes the "ambiguity, the complexity, and the irony"
(Stupple 70) of his works, especially Dandelion Wine and the Martian
Chronicles. (Stupple 70)
Overall,
Bradbury's remarkable depth and complexity in his execution of Dandelion Wine
as well as the skilful use of multiple themes render it a masterpiece to be
treasured for ages to come. His use of universal themes that appeal to all make
it more likely to be read and understood by all who come across it, bringing
Bradbury's essential message to all.
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