Analysis of the Story "Beyond the Dream"

Clichés Prevalent in Our Culture in the Novel

According to the novel "Beyond the Dream" by Shaudin Melgar-Foraster, it has been said that Beyond the Dream breaks with a series of clichés prevalent in our culture. Some of the clichés, which were presented in the novel include destiny, being an orphan, wisdom, racial prejudice, and unrealistic episodes that the author portrayed. The clichés were applied in the story in one way or the other. Since Ann was portrayed as a dominant character, author used her as a symbol of the underlying conflict in the story of "Beyond the Dream" and its setting. The author also created an overwhelmingly and complicated narrative and set it in a world of ignorant people in a strange location. Moreover, no other person surrounding Ann was blessed with the unique mixture of intelligence and understanding, as she was, to tell this tale.

Interpretation of the Relevant Clichés in the Novel

Destiny

A careful analysis of the novel unveils that Ann’s destiny was a sign of relief, and that which was against the oppression. One notes that the author gave a detailed explanation of Ann’s perception about the symbolic quarry. Using symbolism, the author portrayed anti-Calvinist tradition that depicted Calvinist god as a monster capable of creating weighty destruction. The author referred to the monster as “a huge warrior with blood-red eyes” (Melgar-Foraster 2). Furthermore, Alison perceives Ann as a reprobate, thus influenced Ann’s characterization in the novel. She also claimed that Satan’s victimization of Ann was itself reprobation. Here, the evidences that the Author used in creating themes, seemed to portray the implicitly of the cosmic evil in its hopeless form. Under this concept, she revisited her traditional opposition to Alison. Indeed, she extensively applied the concepts of theology in her sophisticated remarks, which are subsidiary to thematic aspects of the novel Beyond the Dream. Indeed, it sounds extra-ordinary and an over-exaggeration of human nature. Notably, such aspects are preferably used in novel telling for their humorous appeal to the audience.   

Being Orphan

The interpretation of the novel continues to elicit mixed reactions about her artistic nature, though she rejected this mantle because she was an orphan in the new land. However, Ann’s life as presented in the novel is ultimately transformative, evocative and fantastically playful. The author seems to use Ann to depict the conflicting context under which the novel is set. This became apparent in her opening remark when she wanted to be called ‘Ann’, possibly a famous invocation that many novelists would use in attracting the audience or readers. From the beginning of the novel, one notices a magnified and transformed work of an artist whose creativity was relatively inspiring. One of such magnificent scenes occurred when Ann, Alison and others had a view of the sea (Melgar-Foraster 4). Though fascinating, the approach was used in the novel to depict an unusual setting as many novelists would do their work. Indeed, the author’s creativity made the novel reasonably interesting and educative.

Wisdom

Basically, the theme of wisdom in the novel is inspiring and acts as they keenly look at human’s true nature. As clearly represented, Ann began to establish the real nature on a human being, her origin and perhaps the destination. Ultimately, the author sought for the same and a number of human aspects during their lifetime. In the novel Beyond the Dream, the author portrayed human nature as a series of connections, which include things such as prejudice, religious affiliations, and cultural attributes. Notably, the characteristics are willful and strong as depicted by the sea currents and Monstrous nature of the novel. This is also compared to Ann that is core in the development of the novel. The author presented the Monstrous nature of human aspects through stages in the whole novel to create a distinct scenario (Melgar-Foraster 5). 

In the novel, Author makes the biblical relationship between Ann and Alison. Here, Ann used her wisdom to give a link between his hypothesis and moral principles. She explained categorically that for such hypothesis to be acceptable, it needed the moral support to prevent unprecedented actions. In fact, the author demonstrated that the consequential actions might overrule the hypothesis despite the methodology used to ascertain it. The author asserted that, the actions are merely attributed to the human assumptions and compelling conditions. This indicates that, their reality is never reliable as they keep shifting from one individual to another. Furthermore, he presented a theoretical view about such activities as well as the personal position and belief on the matter.

Racial Prejudice

In the novel, since there is no scientific proof of the existence of religious activities, the opinion that has been presented for the existence of such activities depends on ones psychological statues, racial prejudice and level of reasoning. Literally, the author argued that something that science cannot explain is subject to human manipulations and misinterpretations. For example, Beyond the Dream is similar to illusive and fictitious stories, which a person might develop to convince the second party of a unique occurrence. Ann accepts that there is no replicable methodology of interpreting the powers of God and other forces of nature. Therefore, it could be perceived that he believed Ann’s excess and almost ultimate powers similar to those exhibited by God. 

Ann displayed some limitations regarding faith; this was another controversial issue that science and human being do not explain. In reality, it is persistent and depicted when Jonah’s opted to sail through the ocean so that he could escape facing God. He was portrayed as disobedient since he believed that moving to other countries could make him disappear from God. This was a wrong perception and belief since God reign around the whole world.

According to Ann, racial prejudice could not match scientific research that has not yielded fruit on the matter and the people only base their augments on assumptions (Stein 10). There are people who share in this opinion and have claimed that the God does not reign everywhere, not realizing that God’s powers is beyond the scope of all human characters. However, nobody has ever watched the occurrence of such escape attempts since the airplanes and ship’s passengers do not tell the real novel because their constant movements are due to business, tourism, spreading gospel, and other personal attributes (Stein 24). 

Unrealistic Episodes

The imagination of being trapped by God’s mighty power during the movements, made Ann, crew members and sailors avoid the voyage, fearing for their lives (Stein 33). In this regard, Ann was wrong to assume that since the sea usually experiences high waves and heavy hurricanes; such occurrences make the vessels sink and could be God’s power. However, no one has ever watched ships sin or, understands where the vessels and passengers go to, other than to the undersea, despite the occasional high tides. Therefore, it means the scientific documentaries about the occurrence have no correlation with the norms of the people living in this area, thus a real significance of God (Stein 42).

In addition, Ann seems to forget that even the ship she would use to escape is man-made, and God’s power could make it disappear mysteriously without information of their whereabouts. In essence, the limitations regarding one’s faith in God explain the phenomenon portrayed in the novel as more of a mystical belief, than being justifiable. In addition, the question that disturbs the readers is whether there were forces, which anchored the vessels at the shore for the crew to have a clear view of the sea, as portrayed in the novel. Literally, the novelist does not provide any convincing explanation has been put forward to clarify the phenomenon (Melgar-Foraster 7). 

The other controversial episode in the novel is the claim that a number of people still believe that the shipmasters are supreme, not knowing that the ship could disappear during the journey (Stein 50). In the context of the novel, this sounds unique and contentious issue for the readers to explain and conceptualize. For example, according to author, the sailors of the ship carrying the crew pledged loyalty to their master who was a huge warrior with blood-red eyes. This depicts a characteristically true tradition, where other forms of powers rested. Due to the mysteries circumstances surrounding the purported natural forces, analysts still attribute them to unknown and strange powers in the region in the context of Beyond the Dream. 

In the novel, one would wonder where Ann got his extreme powers above other men and even on matters of critical importance such as their life or death after many years of frustrations in a strange land. Ann could make decision whether the people die, or continue to live. Perhaps, using his authority, she had the power to kill. However, it became vivid that God’s power overrides human authorities. It is through religious or cultural beliefs that the people might use to explain such activities (Davis 19). Typically, one would argue that since culture varies across the various groups of people, the explanation for certain human activities takes different directions according to the people’s beliefs. In this aspect, Davis asserts that a similar occurrence among different groups of characters would be explained differently, in line with the traditional beliefs (Davis 45). For example, in the novel, if a question related to astral projection, Ann prophesies mutual dreams, pre-cognitive dreams, crop circles, and remote viewing. Therefore, one would be perplexed with the diverse analytical responses, which the people from different religious ethnic groups would provide (Davis 104).

As depicted in the novel, religious people would attribute pre-cognitive and horrible dreams as the works of the devil on that person (Davis 126). However, the author lacked an explanation to the occurrence, because they are not able to measure such assumptions, nor replicate them. Now, which argument can a person believe? Similarly, the author indicated that the author was confused and forced to rely on their extinct to make out the reality in the novel. Some would relate the occurrence to their religious and/or traditional teachings. 

Take an example of the Ann’s revolt as depicted in the novel, the occurrence such as human perceptions, which are unknown and mysterious environment, where strange thing happen beyond the comprehension of the individual person (Melgar-Foraster 14). As the author reflected in the novel, once the person wakes up from the dream and cultural perception to face the reality, it becomes complex, thereby leaving the present issues for God. At some instances in the novel, there are claims that science does not have the capability to measure mystery in a dream. This indicates that the scientist would not offer any explanation using the scientific methodology, because such methodology requires the person to read the whole article, analyze the content and comment on the matter. Sometimes, the reader might be forced to replicate the occurrence to determine if similar results were found to make the novel reliable. Therefore, the author’s explanation relied on the use of intrinsic and theoretical knowledge, not the scientific one.