Dear Sunshine

The Barbarian invasion
“Should I kill them for you?” he asked his mother. She ran her hands through his hair. “No, Dear Sunshine. Let them come.”



‟
Is the dragon separate from the child? Is it an entity that the child keeps under control? Or is the dragon an aspect of the boy himself? Is his father right, is the dragon the boy‟s true nature?


The Freudian Model of the Psyche The Id
The
Ego
Superego
The
The Id

The id is the part of the mind containing the drives present at birth; it is the source of our bodily needs, wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse
“His mother wrapped a blindfold around his eyes and from then on he lived in darkness.”
Irony:

There is an irony in that his mother‟s first action is to blindfold the child, essentially depriving him of visually experiencing sunshine, the very thing that he is named after. If „sunshine‟ is a positive metaphor for him, then it is a metaphor that he himself would find difficult to comprehend as he lives in a world of continual darkness.
Theory #2: Feminism
What
is Feminism?

Feminism is a collection of movements and ideologies aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, cultural, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment. A feminist advocates or supports the rights and equality of women.
The role of a medieval Queen
“You think I don’t know about your
whores?” his mother screamed. “You think I don’t know about all your bastards?” “You think I’ll risk breeding a bitch who throws out dragons?” his father snarled. “You think I want that thing to be my heir?”
Is Dear Sunshine the dragon?

Notice that to the King his son is the dragon; their identity is one and the same, to the extent that his father actually denies his son‟s essential humanity. To the King, his offspring is not human and no amount of human love or effort will enable the monster to become a boy, any more than one might teach a tiger to be a human or a lion to eat straw. Dear Sunshine is not a child‟s identity, it is a creation of his wife, imposed upon a dangerous monster.
Question:
To
what extent are Dear Sunshine and the dragon separate entities?

The dragon can be seen „behind‟ the boy‟s eyes. The dragon „screams under [Dear Sunshine‟s] skin‟, constantly crying „Release me Release me Release me‟
Nature vs. Nurture


“You can‟t turn a monster into a boy,” his father said, “And you can‟t turn a dragon into a son.” “Just watch what I can do,” his mother said.
Dear Sunshine

Dear Sunshine begins with a timeless scene common to humanity: the birth of a child. Notice how the writer immediately signals the child‟s difference.
Dear Sunshine does learn control. His only victims are those who have attacked or provoked him: the drunken knight who removed his blindfold when he was three years old, and the assassins who attempted to kill him Dear Sunshine is immune to things that would kill a normal human and has superhuman strength. He has the ability to kill with ease,

When Dear Sunshine kills the drunken knight he says „I released him [the dragon] and it felt good‟.
Was Dear Sunshine‟s killing of the knight an evil act? Is Dear Sunshine evil?
Question:
What
is infant euthanasia? How old is the practice? How recent is the practice?
Infant inspection in Ancient Sparta
530,000 year old child skull
Theme: the role of women



The societal structure is not described in detail, but we can infer certain things about it. What sort of society do you think they live in? What is the level of technology?
Ancient Greece
Norse Mythology
Sigurd fighting a dragon
Christian symbolism: The Dragon as Satan
The reaction of the midwife
The
midwife‟s reaction raises questions about infant euthanasia that are both timeless and timely

“When he was born he had exactly six minutes of normal living.”
Trope:
„the eyes as windows of the soul‟ What does this mean?
The symbolism of the dragon
We can interpret the dragon as being the boy‟s id.