Sell my Dreams (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)

The author recognised her by the snake ring with emerald eyes on the woman’s hand. He had seen a similar ring on Frau Frieda’s right forefinger many years earlier in Vienna, so the discovery of the ring in the newspaper made him suspect that the dead woman was the same person.

He left Vienna after Frau Frieda told him, with complete conviction, that she had dreamed about him and that he must leave at once and not come back for five years. Her certainty was so strong that he obeyed, boarded the last train to Rome that night, and later never returned.

Pablo Neruda knew it because he felt someone behind him staring at him. He told the author that there was someone behind him who would not stop looking at him, and when the author glanced over his shoulder, he saw Frau Frieda staring at him.

Neruda countered her claims of clairvoyance by saying that he too had dreamed about her. When asked to tell his dream, he replied, “I dreamed she was dreaming about me.” In this way he matched her dream with another dream and turned the matter into a playful challenge to her powers.

No, the author did not fully believe in her prophetic ability. He was deeply influenced by her, but he also thought that her dreams were probably not supernatural prophecies. His later remark that he had always thought her dreams were “no more than a stratagem for surviving” shows his doubt.

He thought so because Frau Frieda used her dreams to find work, gain security, and control her life. She began by dreaming for her family, then worked as a paid dream-interpreter in Vienna, and gradually took over the household’s trust and even its fortune. So her dreams seemed less like magic and more like a practical way of surviving in difficult circumstances.

He compares Neruda to a Renaissance pope because Neruda was gluttonous, refined, and commanding at the table. Like a pope presiding over a formal ceremony, he dominated meals, loved rich food, and had an air of authority and grandeur, while still being curious and full of life.

This statement means that even though human beings are rational, many of us still become easily influenced and believe in old superstitions. In the story, the family in Vienna is religious and superstitious, so they accept Frau Frieda’s dreams. The line suggests that superstition still has power over people’s minds.