Dreams in The Marrow Thieves Essay Example

In Cherie Dimaline’s novel The Marrow Thieves, dreams are important to the characters because dreams help pass down the language, they keep society functioning, they motivate the group mentally, and they kept their humanity. The characters in the novel all defend this issue in their own ways. Dreams are important for Indigenous people in so many different ways. 

Dreams have passed the language throughout the years. Without the dreams the elders would not be able to pass down the language because the it would already have been forgotten. In the chapter, The Fire, Miigs says to Frenchie, “Dreams get caught in the webs woven in your bones. That’s where they live, in that marrow there.” Miigs is trying to say that they have been collecting dreams for years.  Another reason as to why dreams have helped pass down the language is because it motivates them. It motivates them to keep living to make sure that the younger generation can experience what they have felt with their dreams. Cherie Dimaline states, “As it turns out, every dream Minerva had ever dreamed was in the language. It was her gift, her secret, her plan. She’d collected the dreams like bright beads on a string of nights that wound around her each day, everyday until this one.”   

The society has been kept full of life due to the dreams. Dreams have helped the society by making them care for each other. It’s the one thing that is holding the family together. Frenchie thinks to himself,” Everything was different. We were faster without our youngest and oldest, but now we were without deep roots, without the acute need to protect and make better.” This indicates that family needs each other. Together they make each other want to “protect and make better.” French thinks to himself,” I heard it in his voice as Miigwans began to weep. I watched it in the steps that pulled Isaac, the man who dreamed in Cree, home to his love. The love who’d carried him against the rib and breath and hurt of his chest as ceremony in a glass vial. And I understood that as long as there are dreamers left, there will never be want for a dream. And I understood just what we would for each other, just what we would do for the ebb and pull of the dream that held us all. Anything. Everything.” Frenchie reaches the highest level of the lesson. He learned what it felt like to love, to live, and to survive. 

Throughout the story Frenchie was able to keep his humanity even the circumstances. For example, he refrained from killing the deer and tried to avoid all actions that would harm unless necessary. Frenchie says to himself,”  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let it come to this, not for him and not for me.” He knew that he would not be able to handle what he had done. He was not the only one who also refrained from killing or harming. For example, Miigs was also one of the big characters who was able to keep their humanity. On page 144,  Miigs says,” I didn’t kill him, not right there. I hurt him bad, though, shot him in his arm and a thigh…He cried hardest when I drove away with his truck, leaving him all alone.”  Miigs avoided trying to blame himself. He refrained from shooting the driver right then and there.

Dreams have helped Indigenous people many times. They are important to them for three main reason such as dreams help pass down the language, they keep society functioning, they motivate the group mentally, and they kept their humanity.