Dreams

The thematic focus on dreams in the story is announced by the title of the collection, Dream Stuff, an allusion to Shakespeare's The Tempest (4.1.156-58). Prospero, the central character in the play, notes the temporal nature of human life in his claim, “We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded by a sleep.” (The passage from Shakespeare appears in Peter Pierce's article, “What Dreams May Come: David Malouf's Dream Stuff.) In “Great Day,” this allusion suggests reflection, as Audley celebrates his seventy-second birthday, and hope as the characters are able to find comforting connections.

Fran's dream becomes a sign of the unification that the family feels at the end of the story after Clem has declared, “Anything is possible. . . . Nothing ever gets lost.” She sees herself lying down with the others on the beach and recognizes the connection that she has...