Elias Curran-MooreSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Freudian Explanation of the Purpose of the Narrator's Dreams in "Balzac and the Little Chinese Dressmaker" Various theories about why we dream range from practical applications such as facilitating encoding memories for long-term storage or processing problems abstractly, to activation synthesis theory, which states that dreams have no purpose or meaning and are the result of random activity of the pons and brainstem. For anyone unfamiliar with Sigmund Freud, simply put, his theory emphasizes that dreams reveal our subconscious thoughts and innermost desires. According to Freud, dreams have both a manifest content, the remembered plot, and a latent content, the hidden meaning. In this theory, dreams are the key to understanding inner conflict. This theory can be clearly understood in “Balzac,” as it is easily applicable to the nameless central protagonist. Especially since the Narrator is confined to a small, isolated area with few ties to the outside world and few outlets for his desires and true inclinations on the mountain in the midst of his oppressive re-education, the Narrator processes these impulses by experiencing extremely vivid dreams. In Dai Sijie's Balzac and the Little Chinese Dressmaker, the narrator's honest, harsh, and unwanted thoughts can be blissfully depicted in dreams. The narrator is constantly torn between his feelings of loyalty towards his best friend, Luo, and his feelings for the girl. Luo says he loves. This internal tug-of-war is something that is simply impossible to express in reality without creating some sort of emotional fallout or scene, which would likely destroy the Narrator's long-standing friendship and would not be tolerated by the rigid regime in place on the planet. mountain. To remedy this, the narrator's subconscious formulates fantasy worlds for him. One of the narrator's dreams involved his best friend who "...dreamed that Luo entrusted me with the master key." (Sijie 91) a device critical to the success of their mission to steal priceless, forbidden Western novels. . His dream throws him into the middle of another fairytale utopian world. Luo's complete trust and approval was given to him through this master key, showing that the dream gives him one of his deepest desires, Lou's complete and utter trust and respect. In the dream the mission is successful “As a last resort I tried the master key again and suddenly, with a sharp click, the lock gave way.”(92) revealing how these dreams are obviously the desire of the narrator, as well as the mission goes perfectly only after his own intervention. Dreams also show major sources of expression of the Narrator's hidden desires, seen when the narrator points to “the villagers shouting and singing revolutionary songs” (91). Unable to reveal his desire for new knowledge in the midst of an oppressive re-education that does not allow Western ideas whatsoever, immediately surpassing the celebration the narrator's real desires are shown in his dream. The narrator's conscious attempts to take an interest in the events of the village, while the narrator's true desire is to explore elsewhere in the world, he wants to explore Western ideas, or in this case, direct access to Quattrocchi's foreign books, the action taken in dream, and then in reality when it becomes feasible. Dreams are the direct outlet for his id and for those honest desires that cannot be accepted in the real world. Another dream of the narrator shows that his thoughts..