Howells's Oresteia: The Union of Theme and Structure in The Shadow of a Dream

Abstract

B ECAUSE OF THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THRUST of The Shadow of a Dream, its thematic affinities with the body of Howells's writing tend to be obscured. No one, however, has fully considered the usefulness of explicating the work in light of the Oresteia, by means of which these affinities are clearly demonstrated. The trilogy, as employed by Aeschylus, combined three separate but interrelated tragedies to depict three successive stages of a larger tragedy thematically exploring the fatal effects of sin. Characteristically, these effects took the form of a curse which descended on the family of the infecting it with a hereditary taint and blighting the happiness of each succeeding generation. The device of the trilogy enabled Aeschylus to encompass the extended time periods thus involved and to portray, in consecutive dramas, the abiding influence of an ancestral curse.1 In The Shadow of a Dream, Basil March explicitly views events in terms of a play (p. 103)2 and a Greek trilogy (p. 95), himself as a spectator at a theater, and Nevil as one of the actors (p. 104). The story itself consists of three separate but interrelated tragedies, each named for its chief personage3 and each depicting a separate stage of a larger tragedy encompassing a period of years. The curse in question is, of course, the dream; the initial offender, Faulkner. In Aeschylean fashion, Howells charts the effects of the curse as it is transmitted-and inherited-by each character in turn.4