Like a Dream
The description of the dream which opens the story and is its central element is described in metaphorical terms. This makes sense, of course, since dreams are by nature metaphorical representations. Unless, that is, it ultimately turns out that they are absolutely, one-hundred percent meaningless:
“She had felt, in fact, during the course of the dream, remarkably detached, as if she had been watching a play in which she had only one line; a line that was spoke from the wings.”
Not Just Wheelchairs
In her dream, the newly wedded bride’s former loves are situated in wheelchairs suspended in mid-air. Now that alone may seem like enough to write at least a page of dream analysis about, but it isn’t even the most important part:
“The men involved had looked to her like strange trapeze artists or happy preschool children on playground swings. They were having, it appeared, a wonderful time.”
She Likes Legs
The bride has a strange erotic fascination with mens’ legs. If the extended reverie which describes this fetishistic obsession seems odd or out-of-sync, remember one important thing about this story. It is short so therefore every piece of information the author chose to decide is of significance. Also: it helps to familiarize yourself with dream imagery and psychological symbolism:
“Male excess was distributed elsewhere, in the face, around the middle, but rarely in the legs. They were holy territory”
Marriage: A Fantas
A quick glimpse into the bride’s image of what a perfect marriage is like is provided early on in a passage which also reveals her favorite color is yellow. The penetration into the mind of the bride is essential to the process of psychoanalyzing the meaning of her dream:
“She imagined the one-bedroom apartment they had chosen filing up with radiant sunlight like the gold-leaf backgrounds that she had seen in old paintings.”
Marriage: A Nightmare
The fantasy sepia-toned image engendered by paintings and movies and TV offers insight into the conscious workings of the bride’s mind relative to marriage. The story climaxes with the metaphorical imagery temporarily unleashed by repressed anxiety bubbling briefly to the surface:
“she would realize that the organized behavior of the Atlantic was what the reset of her life would be”
