SOURCE: "Grinev's Dream: The Captain's Daughter and a Father's Blessing," in Slavic Review, Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring, 1981, pp. 60-76.

In the following essay, Emerson deploys Freudian analysis to interpret and explore the thematic significance of Grinev's dream in The Captain's Daughter.

In his historical drama Boris Godunov, Pushkin gives the novice Grigorii a dream. The young man climbs a winding staircase to a tower, from which Moscow seems an anthill; the milling crowd below looks up and laughs; Grigorii is ashamed, terrified, falls headfirst, and awakes. The monk Pimen interrupts the writing of his chronicle to recommend fasting and prayer to calm the blood. But despite the ill omen of his dream, Grigorii wishes to make history, not write it. The remaining scenes tell that story, the attempt of an inspired pretender to enter history and the failure of the anointed monarch to meet the challenge. Embedded in the...