Fables and Reflections
Every time I try to analyze this collection of Sandman shorts, I want it to be more coherent than it is. There's no underlying theme or message or motif in these stories. They were initially spread across the run much more than they appear to be in this collection. So some but not all of them are named for months, and some but not all concern themselves with names. Dream himself doesn't even appear in all of the stories (though the one he's absent from takes place most wholly in his kingdom). Given that, it only makes sense to tackle each story individually. Fear of Falling : This is an incredibly short story that is nonetheless one of the most remembered and quoted from the entire run. A director is scared of his new play failing and is planning to abandon it before that happens. His anxiety manifests as a dream in which he falls off the top of the cliff and sees only two options: die or wake up. But Dream appears to him and presents a third option in what is probably t...