Three Dreams in a Desert

When I first read this short story, I had to re-read it. It was a little hard to grasp at first. After reading it the second time I thought about the three dreams that the narrator had as the women's struggle for freedom, or equality. The first dream appears to be a woman chained down by a man. She has no form of movement unless her bonds to the man standing next to her are broken. This makes me think of when women in earlier days were considered to be "property" of their husbands. They owned nothing, and had no say in politics. Then next dream to me makes me think of a woman who is in a committed relationship. To me, what is meant by the "child" at her breast, is really her husband. He does not have the type of responsibilities that she does because he constantly relies on her to do the "dirty work" around the house. He is being taken care of by the woman in a sense; for example feeding him. So in this dream he is considered an infant, and the woman just wants to cross the river, so she can be in the land of Freedom. To me the land of Freedom represents this New Woman's dream world where she can find love and friendship which were some of the key words in this passage. However she has to travel down the road of labor to achieve this freedom. The road of labor to me is all the hard work she is going to have to put in before she can be independent. In the third dream it made me feel that heaven represented maybe a time period such as now. A period where women have more rights and are given more of a voice. When picturing the image of men and women holding hands it reminded me of the first dream when the man could not help the woman. Now men and women experience equality can live together in this sort of "heaven."