Self Fulfilling Prophecy in “The Dream Woman” by Wilkie Collins
Instructions
-
We are doing a close reading of “The Dream Woman” by Wilkie Collins (pdf attached)
-
~600 words
-
MLA format for in text citations and works cited
-
Times New Roman 12 pt font, double spaced
-
Please don’t take this outline word by word expect for quotations, edit as you see fit
Intro + Thesis:
-
Introduce the story briefly, how it surrounds a dream being true, mirroring a psychology concept called the self fulfilling prophecy…
Thesis: Through limited narration that treats Isaac’s fear as truth and silences Rebecca’s voice in the story, Collins suggests Isaac’s fate is not predetermined but becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy shaped by his belief. (something like this please reword)
Body 1: The narration is structurally biased against Rebecca from the start.
-
Evidence: the landlord's admission that "so far, I tell you what was told to me" (294)
-
Isaac cataloguing Rebecca's face as "stern, pale, but still most beautiful" (277) as though checking her against his mother's written description.
-
Point: the story's structure and perspective form which it was told ensures Rebecca is never seen outside of Isaac's interpretive framework, so the reader inherits his bias too.
-
Body 2: Isaac's perception, shaped by the dream, transforms Rebecca's neutral actions into evidence of threat.
-
On page 284, the narrator says “The shadow, as he did so, returned to the window, and the fatal face peered in curiously once more.” This moment made me wonder if the "shadow" can be read as the dream quite literally casting itself into reality. The “shadow” is not just Rebecca outside, but the lingering vision of the dream re-entering Isaac’s life, as if the dream is no longer contained within his mind. "The shadow, as he did so...' suggests a break through between subconscious and reality, where what was once imagined now takes on a physical form.
-
Rebecca's behaviour is human, but Isaac's language, "shadow" and "fatal," makes it monstrous.
-
Point: the gap between what Rebecca does and how it is described is where Collins shows perception replacing reality. His beliefs are shaping the way he perceives.
-
-
Additional in-text evidence that you can use:
-
"That faint cleaving doubt which he had never been able to shake off in Rebecca Murdoch's presence was fatally set at rest forever" (283) suggesting Isaac's mind is already made up before any real evidence exists
-
"Something mysteriously untraceable, and yet something that perpetually made itself felt; not when he was absent from Rebecca Murdoch, but, strange to say, when he was actually in her presence" (281)
-
Body 3: The one moment Collins grants Rebecca interiority reveals that Isaac's fear, not fate, destroyed the marriage.
-
Evidence: she was "exasperated to the last degree by his distrust of her" (290), combined with Isaac's final state where "she's looking for me" (295) is all he can say.
-
Additional piece of evidence that you can incorporate: "She had taken possession, not of his passions only, but of his faculties as well. All the mind he had he put into her keeping" (280)
-
Point: her deterioration was reactive to Isaac’s distrust and his inability to see that, being locked inside his dream's logic, is what fulfils the prophecy.
-
The ending is not inevitable but rather Isaac arriving at the conclusion his fear always intended - a self-fulfilling prophecy. .
-
Conclusion
-
Doesn't have to be long but don't repeat thesis word for word.