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    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams"
    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams"
    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams"
    Ebook31 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateJul 15, 2016
    ISBN9781535818179
    A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Stephen Vincent Benet's "An End to Dreams" - Gale

      1

      An End to Dreams

      Stephen Vincent Benét

      1932

      Introduction

      Stephen Vincent Benét is one of America's most popular short story authors. His The Devil and Daniel Webster is considered a classic, and his An End to Dreams appeared in Pictoral Review and won the O. Henry Award in 1932. Benét refused to follow the literary trends of his era, presenting instead in his work a more positive view of the American character in its historical moment. In his study of Benét in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Joel Roache claims that Benét's vision of the human ability to transcend its limitations has assured that his short stories will enjoy a secure reputation.

      An End to Dreams focuses on the life of James Rimington as he dreams about it, while anesthetized in a hospital. As he lies in a hospital bed after a serious operation, James dreams about his personal and professional past. In his dream, he imagines that ambition prompted him to reject his small-town values, along with his childhood sweetheart, in order to gain power and wealth through the single-minded pursuit of corporate success. This success then alienated him from those he cared about and cost him any sense of peace. Just at the moment he dreams about dying alone in the hospital, he awakens, and the reader learns his life has taken a very different path. Benét's complex portrait of James, as he is portrayed in his dream and upon waking, presents a compelling exploration of the consequences of the pursuit of the American

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