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Krishna
Prasad Bhusal
“A mother’s dream byGopal Prasad Rimal is a dialogic poem that conveys the
nationalist theme. The poem is all about an abstract character ‘he’, a
futuristic man who will expected to come and rescue the society from being
spoiled. The poem starts with the son’s question to his mother that whether he
would come. Then throughout the poem the mother describes what he would be like
and she tell her son that she has thought that the ‘he’ would be her son
himself. The mother uses lots of figuration with simile and metaphors to
glorify the outlook of the man to come. ‘He’ in the poem is compared with
morning sun, the snow, the fire and the tempest. Use of these sort of metaphors
show that he is not an ordinary man rather he is someone vigorous, powerful,
energetic, and having zeal to fight for the nation and to lead the nation
toward peace prosperity and development. The poem shows the contrasting
worldview of older and younger generation.
In the poem there are two visible characters, the mother and
the son. The mother represents the older generation and the son represents the
younger generation. ‘He’ is the
invisible, abstract character but have influential power. He is the ideal
character, that according to the mother her son should be. Thematically
speaking, the mother’s dream is the dream of older generation that is yet to be
fulfilled, and expected to be fulfilled by younger people. This poem is mostly
written in mother’s point of view i.e. the instruction to the younger people
given by older one. The significantly quotable line from the poem is
“My
youthful dreams constantly hoped ,
That you shall be he.” (18-19)
This line suggests the dream and the hope of older people to
the younger one. But the son’s question makes her disappointed because she is
looking toward her son to fulfill her dream whereas the son is looking not within himself but somewhere else to find
‘he’. This line is repeated at last, this signifies that the mother still hopes
that the son will be he. The pronoun
‘he’ is repeated several times, and he according to the mother will come like a
morning sun with dangling sword. He is
taken as someone divine and symbolic character as if he has power to do
anything.
The
mother’s dream is not the dream to be fulfilled by herself but to be fulfilled
by her son, but even the son on the other hand is not going to fulfill the
dream. This is the realistic and symbolic depiction of the contemporary Nepali
society where the society needs the leader but each individual is looking for
the other. The poet perhaps is signaling the contemporary Nepali political
scenario where despite having millions of population the country lacks the
leader. Older people can’t fulfill the dream and expect younger people to
fulfill, but that is not what happens. Younger people too look for new youngs
and this continues. The poem indirectly blames younger people for not
fulfilling the dream of their parents and not addressing the country’s problem.
But young people are indeed innocent, the country’s problem can not be
addressed by young people only. We should not see dream to be fulfilled by
others, nobody is ever going to fulfill your dream. We should contribute the nation whatsoever
our age is.
