Edgar Allen Poe's poem "A Dream within a Dream" has a depressing and distressed tone. The poem describes how life slips away from us gradually, like grains of sand slipping through our fingers. Poe suggests that life is fleeting and precious, but death ultimately comes for us all like the ocean waves, washing away any memories of our existence. The poem expresses the speaker's distress at the idea that he will eventually be forgotten after death, with his life feeling meaningless like a dream.

1. Analyzing Tone Student Model Responses

2. A Dream Within a Dream Explain the tone and the main idea of the poem. Give three details from the poem to support your response.

5. Explain the tone.

8. The tone of this poem is distressed. One example of this is the stanza, “While I weep—while I weep! O God!” Poe’s distress is evident when he begins to realize that his life will be like a dream when he dies, and no one will really remember how he lived or what he lived for. The “grains of sand creeping through his fingers” symbolizes his time on Earth slipping away. When he cries out to God, he is helpless, his yearning for understanding of his life is shown. In this poem, Hope is considered like an object instead of an idea. When his “friend” Hope leaves him, he is lost.