The imagination is an extremely powerful force. It has the power to create, to comfort, to ruin, and to destroy. It has any ability that is placed upon it, and can save a person from a terrible fate if used actively and in earnest. This largely overrated part of our most basic being can change everything we know about our lives, and substitute it with better alternatives for ourselves. As Mythbusters co-host Adam Savage has famously said, “I reject your reality and substitute it for my own.” In The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan, Neftalí uses his extremely vivid and potent imagination as a tool to escape from the harshness of the reality he finds himself in, creating a better revised edition in which he is able to take solace.
Neftalí has a rather boring life, but he is never bored in anything that he does, or is forced to do. This is evident from the very beginning, when Neftalí envisions the numbers floating from the page of his homework (2). Already Ryan establishes Neftalí as an artistic and innocent figure who uses his imagination to remove himself from the dreariness of his childhood, through the creative recreation of the things that cause him such grief. The numbers are symbolic of the boy’s often wandering mind and they demonstrate how buoyant and distant his thoughts can really be. He even goes on to quit doing his math homework on the grounds of the numbers’ new absence, showing that he truly does believe that what he imagines is the truth. His ability to change the world around him with the pure power of thought is extraordinary, and develops as he ages.
Neftalí doesn’t only use the power of his mind to escape from boredom, but also to draw strength and power from the objects he so lovingly observes and describes in ord...
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...There would be no art, no poetry, no beauty at all. Life would be meaningless, and it seems that we often overlook the importance of this creature that lives inside us, growing and shrinking with use or misuse. Neftalí, unconsciously or not, understood the crucial importance of his imagination despite opposition and was able to use it to fight his personal demons. Without imagination, the boy’s spirit would have long been broken and he would have become much like his brother, shriveled and lost. We owe a great deal to our imaginations. More than we even know.
Works Cited
Ryan, Pam Muñoz., and Peter Sís. The Dreamer. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.
Savage, Adam. "Adam Savage Quotes." Find the Famous Quotes You Need, ThinkExist.com Quotations. 2011. Web. 23 Oct. 2011. .
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