Dreams

The author explores the powerful and motivating nature of one’s dreams via Vivian’s aspirations for her daughters. For years since her husband Ellis’s death, Vivian has relied upon her daughters’ singing career for a sense of meaning and purpose. Cultivating her daughters’ into the trio, the Salvations, and watching them become successful in show business has become her primary dream. However this dream, the reader learns in the early chapters of the novel, is particularly tied to her daughter Ruth. After hearing from Mr. Franklin, Vivian knows that the girls finally have an opportunity to be famous. However, Vivian realizes at the end of her first section, “without Ruth . . . the life inside the dream would expire” (24). Therefore, when Ruth gets pregnant, marries Gerry, and leaves the Salvations, Vivian feels her dream fracturing. Indeed, the Salvations are symbolic of the way Vivian sees her...