Ruthless Vows

Memories and dreams serve as motifs that develop the theme of What Is Versus What Could Have Been. There is a lot of overlap between memories and dreams throughout the novel, which suggests the extent to which the characters are fantasizing about what could have been rather than accepting what is—a practice that renders the past merely an exercise in fantasy. Iris, for example, notes early on “how seldom daydreams […] align[] with reality” (16). By daydreaming, Iris temporarily buries her anguish and sorrow beneath imaginings of what could have been.

In other cases, however, the relationship between dreams and memories points in the opposite direction: An apparent fantasy communicates a real past’s intractable presence. When Roman’s memories begin trickling back in his dreams, he suffers nightmares of his sister’s drowning. Rather than believe the horrible reality, Roman desperately hopes that it is merely a nightmare, reflecting that Del’s death was “a mistake that should never have happened. If it had happened at all” (53-54). Dacre capitalizes on Roman’s desire by telling Roman, “Sometimes your kind dreams of things you wish had happened. […] Your envisioning of a little sister is a simple expression of how much you long for family, to be known” (55).