What is the meaning of "Life is but a Dream"?

Question

this poem by Lewis Carroll. What is the theme of this poem? and could you also have evidence on why you think that way? Please and thank you

Life is but a Dream by Lewis Carroll


A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July—

Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple take to hear—

Long has paled that sunny sky;
Echoes fade and memories die;
Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under the skies
Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die;

Ever drifting down the stream—
Lingering in the golden gleam—
Life, what is it but a dream?

Answer 1

Carroll's analogy in the first stanza about the boat 'lingering onward dreamily' reminds me of something I read in Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead: in a boat, one is "free to move, speak, extemporise and yet" - it is contained. There is one immutable fact: life, like being on a ship, is uncertain. This uncertainty and sense of isolation is best represented on a boat, where there is always the uncertainty of going "off course".



Likewise, life is unpredictable; what's stopping us from 'going off course' per se and what if the 'course' of events has already been predetermined - wouldn't it be presumptuous of us to interfere with fate? I think this is what Carroll is trying to get at when he says 'Echoes fade and memories die,' emphasizing the inevitability of an end to life (he uses words like phantom, slain, fade, haunt, pale [pale like the colour of the dead, and pale like impale] which seems to point in this direction). 'Life, what is it but a dream?' Death is the greatest uncertainty - what if death is truly when life begins, and life is merely a dream?

Answer 2

It is a comment on life, the innocence of childhood

--children enjoying a fantastic story

--the inevitable passage from childhood to adulthood

--keeping memories and passing them on to the next generation, even if the memory is just a memory of a story (Alice never existed)



The best in life is like a dream, we live in the reality of today and look back at the best parts long ago, and remember it but it is like remembering a dream. But enjoying those moments --that's a dream too, something we want and look back on and enjoy.

Answer 3

wake up and see reality