Annie John

Dreams play a major role in deciphering subconscious psychological issues, such as fears, desires, and anxieties in Annie John. Dreams "have been interpreted as expressions of infantile desires or considered elaborations of the problems of waking hours". In Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John, Annie’s dreams become a significant element in the way she views herself and the world around her. Annie comments about her dreams: "I had been taught by my mother to take my dreams seriously. My dreams were not unreal representations of something real; my dreams were a part of, and the same as, my real life" (Kincaid 89). Annie realizes that her dreams indicate the issues of her separation anxiety, reveal her conflicting desire to break away from her mother, and reflect her growth and development.
The dream that Annie has about her mother on the rock signifies Annie’s first confrontation with the changing relationship with her mother and Annie’s first feelings of separation anxiety. Children’s dreams have been found to be realistic representations of their lives, their dreams being a follow-up of their waking hours. They represent the most pressing concerns and tasks for children at the different stages of growth. In dreams, children give symbolic expression to their developmental struggles. Furthermore, specialists "maintain that about 50% of dreams are linked with events of the earlier day. Annie’s dreams reveal the struggles she goes through in real life. Before this dream, Annie says her relationship with her mother was "a paradise" (Kincaid 25). However, in Annie’s dream about the rock, she foresees the changes in their relationship. Her mother’s separation from Annie, shown by sitting on the rock, symbolizes their emotional separation that would soon follow. In the autobiography she reads to her class, Annie writes, "I couldn’t find her, a huge black space then opened up in front of me and I fell inside it. I couldn’t think of anything except that my mother was no longer