Fever Dream

Fever Dream is essentially a novel about motherhood and the impossibility of protecting one’s child from every possible danger. Although they are opposites in many respects, Carla and Amanda find themselves in almost identical situations with identical outcomes. Both fail to protect their children in situations that seem innocuous, with no obvious danger. The novel addresses the difficulty of relying on maternal instincts in a modern world where threats are ever more abstract and nebulous.

Both Carla and Amanda express feelings of maternal anxiety, a worry that some harm will befall their child. Before David was born, for example, Carla was obsessed with the concern that her son would be missing fingers and toes. However, the most explicit and repeated image of maternal anxiety is Amanda’s idea of the “rescue distance,” an invisible thread that always connects her to her daughter. Depending on the safety or danger of a situation, the thread can be loose, allowing the two wander away from one another, or it might pull taut, bringing Amanda closer to Nina so that she can rescue her if necessary. Amanda inherited the idea of the rescue distance from her mother and grandmother, which underscores the universality of her maternal belief that “sooner or later something terrible will happen” (127).

Sometimes, Amanda understands why the thread of the rescue distance pulls tighter—if Nina is walking close to the edge of the pool, for example. Other times, the feeling is more instinctual, and there is no clear source of danger. However, Amanda and Nina’s tragic poisoning presents a modern threat Amanda’s maternal instincts don’t understand and can’t anticipate. When describing David’s accident, Carla tells Amanda, “It’s just that sometimes the eyes you have aren’t enough” (18). Sitting in the grass with Nina as they are poisoned by the toxic “dew,” Amanda is faced with an unknown and invisible danger that slips past her defenses. Despite her constant worry and preparation, she misses the threat when it arrives. 

While Amanda might be able to blame some of her failure on her foreignness, even the local women, who are more aware of the contamination around them, fail to protect their children. The most obvious example is Carla, whose son plays in contaminated water when she isn’t paying attention. However, there are many other children in town with ailments or deformities. Amanda asks David if they have also been poisoned and wonders, “How can a mother not realize?” (150). David tells her some of the children in town “were born already poisoned, from something their mothers breathed in the air, or ate or touched” (151). The widespread nature of the problem suggests that a mother’s ability to protect her child is in no way absolute, particularly in a world becoming ever more toxic and polluted. Despite this, the sense of responsibility still falls on the mothers when their children are harmed, and women like Carla and Amanda are left with crushing feelings of guilt and failure.