Indledning
Unrequited love is something the majority of people will experience throughout their live. This love which is not returned is a one-sided experience that can leave us feeling pain, grief, and frustration.
Although it is different how excessive this “obsession” can be. Unrequited love may take a few different forms, one of them being the desire for an ex after a relationship has ended.
That is exactly what we see in the short story “I Don’t Dream of Genie”, by Chad Pelley from 2016, where we follow Sherry’s process of trying to keep her ended relationship alive in her dreams.
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Uddrag
The title of this short story, “I Don’t Dream of Genie” is a reference to the American fantasy sitcom “I Dream of Jeannie” from 1960’s.
A genie is a spirit who traditionally is imprisoned in a bottle and capable of granting withes to their master.
The genie being Sherry’s ex-boyfriend who is ironically named Gene, obviously implying that he is the genie, Sherry cannot dream about.
The imprisonment; being trapped inside Sherry’s dream, and the wishes being granted since she is the master of her dreams.
Although that is not exactly what she gets out of going to the seminar, and Sherry is therefore not dreaming of Gene.
Sherry has a hard time accepting her and Gene’s break up, especially since it was over another girl6 , so she wants to attempt keeping their relationship alive in a dream completely controlled by herself, making her the master of the “Gene”.
By analyzing lines 90-98 we can tell that this whole story is based on an informal style of writing, this means that it is built up by relatively short sentences with long mainsentences and several subordinate clauses.
“Like Top Gun and the first two Superman movies. But no luck. No improbable dream sequences. No dreams of Genie.”7
This structure is called a paratactic structure. It makes the text much more informal and helps give Sherry her “rude and careless” attitude.
In addition to this, the text is also built up by a large use of verbs. “I couldn’t even remember what I’d dreamt about when I woke up the next morning.”8
The use of many verbs gives the text a colloquial language and creating an action filled course.
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