A Dream Within a Dream: Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The “surf-tormented shore”

The setting for the poem’s second stanza is a beach that the speaker describes as “a surf-tormented shore” (line 13). Based on this compact description, the reader can easily conjure the image of a stormy, tidal sea with violent waves crashing loudly onto the beach. It is in this dramatic and roaring chaos that the speaker stands, distraught by their inability to keep hold of a handful of sand. The speaker grows increasingly agitated by the seeping of sand through their fingers, ultimately weeping and crying out to God. At this point of emotional intensity, it becomes clear to the reader that the violent surf symbolizes the speaker’s own psyche, agitated by thoughts of existential distress and uncertainty. The link between the speaker’s mind and the external environment provides an example of what’s known as the pathetic fallacy. The pathetic fallacy is a poetic device that involves a poet or speaker projecting human qualities onto the natural world. Here, the entire beach becomes a projection screen. That is, the shoreline, “tormented” by the surf, is a projection of the speaker’s psychological state, which is equally tormented by agitated thoughts.

Grains of Sand

In the second stanza, the speaker grows distraught as grains of sand slip through their fingers. These grains of sand have a dual symbolic function in the poem. On the one hand, the image of sand passing through a narrow gap strongly recalls an old timekeeping device known as an hourglass. An hourglass consists of two glass bulbs connected by a narrow aperture that allows grains of sand to pass through. When all the sand is collected in one of the bulbs, the hourglass may be inverted so that the grains fall into the other bulb, thereby measuring the passage of an hour’s time. With this image in mind, the speaker’s anxiety about the sand slipping through their fingers signals a deeper anxiety about the unstoppable passage of time. On the other hand, the slipping grains of sand also symbolize the ephemerality of human experience. The speaker cries out (lines 19–22):

O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God? can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?

Unable to save even a single grain from the violent oblivion of “the pitiless wave,” the speaker collapses into despair. Really, though, this despair has less to do with the sand falling through their fingers, and more to do with the feeling that life is eluding their grasp.

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