Nagat Almatare
English 102
Professor
Was Anon Dreaming?
In the play “(Anon(ymous),” Anon had to leave his native home with his mother because of war. Anon and his family tried to escape from war and death, but ironically, Anon drowned in the water when the family was on the boat leaving their land. However, Anon’s mother still had hope in her heart that her son might be alive somewhere. As Anon lived running from one place to another, he kept on wishing to go back home because none of the places he had visited felt like his birth home.
It is interesting how people run away from war because their fear of death. However, we all know death can follow us in, and to, any part of the world. Anon had traveled from one place to another looking for his mother, so why did the author, Iizuka, wrote that Anon drowned and then found his mother without making it clear how he did? In this play, Iizuka the author not give a clear conclusion to the play which raises many questions. For instance, was Anon dead and seeing the next world? Was he alive but dreaming as in a comma? Or was all this just a dream because of what he had gone through in his journey of running away from a war? This paly arouses these and more questions because of the way it ends. Its vagueness allows readers to think whatever they want about Anon and how the story ends.
For me, the play reminds me of Shakespeare’s works and how his work was looked down upon because its controversy and many times unpopular endings. For instance, in one of in Hamlet, readers get frustrated by Hamlet’s delay in eliminating Claudius. However, as explained by Sihyun (2017) “a psychoanalytic reading of the play may provide the necessary means, as through Hamlet’s seemingly inexplicable behavior can be rationalized”(p. 2). In the play, Hamlet’s father’s ghost visits the castle, and his suspicions are confirmed. The Ghost complains that he is unable to rest in peace because he was murdered. Claudius, says the Ghost, poured poison in King Hamlet’s ear while the old king napped. Unable to confess and find salvation, King Hamlet is now consigned, thus, his soul goes before going to Heaven and walk the earth by night. He entreats Hamlet to avenge his death, but to spare Gertrude, to let Heaven decide her fate. In the end of the play, I didn’t understand why Hamlet stabs Claudius with a poisoned sword and then pours poisoned wine down the King’s throat. Before he dies, Hamlet declares that the throne should now pass to Prince of Norway, and he implores his true friend Horatio to accurately explain the events that have led to the bloodbath at Elsinore. With his last breath, he releases himself from the prison of his words: “The rest is silence.”
In many cases readers expect a conclusion on what they are reading, but sometime unknown conclusion can keep us thinking to create our own play. When the rest are in silent was unknown conclusion that kept the audience high expectations to think, what will happen next? Who will die again? Similar questions that people would ask about Anon to what will be next. What is the ending of the story? What this all a dream?
Anon explored different places like when the white rich family rescued him and the rich family’s daughter felt that she owned Anon because of her rich father who owns land and mountains. Anon felt that was never his home so he left, kept on traveling to find what he calls “home”. Anon’s mother in the play worked for a sewing factory where the white rich family came and told her that they have rescued a boy from drowning in the water, but that boy ran away because he wanted to go home, the place of his birth. Anon’s mother felt that it might be her son that drowned and it was definitely Anon. I read an report article about dreams by (Nielsen1,2 and Stenstrom1,3) ” recent studies5 suggest that dreams only rarely portray complete
Episodic memories, that is, reproductions of ensembles of places, actions and characters; such memories occur in a mere 1.4% of reports. Isolated fragments or features of episodic memories are more common, however. The reproduction of isolated spatial or temporal features of memories occurred in 28–38% of reports in one study; 65% of dream elements were linked to features of waking events in another study5. In very emotional dreams such as nightmares caused by traumatic experiences, dream imagery can become highly episodic.”
So was Anon dreaming? The memory selection task measures the ability to distinguish between memories that relate to ongoing reality.
In conclusion, plays can also have a clear story with a closure ending, but in the play “(Anon(ymous),” we all can make own conclusion and think of our own way we see the play going towards. For me, all the adventures of the play had sounded that it could’ve been a dream. So, this was my own conclusion of Anon, What might be yours?