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Pearl vs. Solaris


Ultimately, the exact kind of dream vision each work represents is not as important as how they both utilize conventions of the dream vision and present highly literary narratives that do nothing for show, everything for effect (Ebert). .
             Of the many conventions the dream vision genre possesses, only six of them are distinctly present in both narratives: A description or rendering of the narrator falling asleep in the beginning and waking up after his dream; a journey to the underworld or otherworld; the Dreamer/narrator wandering in another world; first person narration which "purports to record an actual dream of the narrator/poet"; a revelatory or apocalyptic vision of religious writing, especially John's Apocalypse; and encounters the narrator has with various figures, some of them allegorical, and at least one authoritative figure who serves as a guide for the dreamer and offers revealing scenes and discussion regarding problems or concerns (Prior 22). .
             Pearl opens with the narrator, in first person, recounting an experience he has while lamenting the loss of his "pearl," with his pearl being someone implicitly close to him. Chris Kelvin is Solaris" narrator. Through his first person point-of-view, we see him lamenting a loss similar to the poem's narrator, that of his wife, Rheya. Kelvin's opening "stanza" is comprised of a series of day-to-day life scenes that depict the state of the material world while reflecting the state of Kelvin's interior one: cold, dreary, and empty. Both the poem's narrator and Kelvin are walking wounded, with Kelvin using his therapy patients similarly to how the narrator uses words to actualize the loss in such a way as to make both it and the value of his pearl a constant presence. Kelvin is depicted walking amongst a city of tombstone-like skyscrapers; Pearl's narrator, prior to falling asleep, is resting atop his pearl's grave. .
             In the poem, the narrator's dream vision begins with him entering a garden, comprised of "crystal cliffs as clear as day" and "gravelstones" like "precious pearls of orient" (Pearl 2.


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