"It's nighttime. Ship's moved by some terrible power at a terrific speed. And though it's imperceptible in the darkness, I have an intuition that we're headed towards a shore. No one else seems to be aboard the vessel. I'm keenly aware of my aloneness."
It's common knowledge that Abraham Lincoln had many dreams before his presidency that people thought to be a foreshadowing of his hardships and even his own death. However, the dream described above seems to have symbolized a different happening in his life: The Thirteenth Amendment. The whole dream, in general, foreshadows the foundation in which the rest of the movie will be built on, but we are going to dissect it and extract the different rhetorics used in it.
"It's nighttime." Night brings darkness, and darkness represents disorientation in terms of direction. Lincoln is feeling lost in the dark. He proposed this amendment to abolish slavery, but he doesn't know where to go with it because he's surrounded by darkness and the only thing keeping it from engulfing him is that faint, flickering light that seems to be just out of his reach, despite the ship's "terrific speed".
"Ship's moved by some terrible power at a terrific speed." Lincoln usually has the boat dreams before battles, but this one, with its speed - when he usually sees himself as a slow, deliberate mover - Mary decides, must be about the slavery amendment. We can tell that Mary seems a bit hysterical almost, as she warns Lincoln about pursuing the 13th Amendment. I thought, perhaps, the director intentionally created a hyperbolic, frenzied daze for her character to represent great risk Lincoln's plan to abolish slavery was, but that wasn’t the case.
After the death of her four year old son, Eddy, and her ten year old son Willie, Mary became emotionally unsteady. In the scene, her shaking hands and constant need to keep them occupied indicate her emotional state of distress, similar to a nervous breakdown. I feel that the director implemented pathos here, and it was very powerful because Mary's desire to "protect" her husband were able to be conveyed to the audience through her frantic-looking facial expression and skittish bodily gestures.
"And though it's imperceptible in the darkness, I have an intuition that we're headed towards a shore." Now, this is good news. This line epitomizes hope in the nighttime, a shore, somewhere to dock the ship. It means that Lincoln doesn't feel completely forlorn - he has some sort of plan in his head, although it's still a work in progress.
"No one else seems to be aboard the vessel. I'm keenly aware of my aloneness." Obviously, this illustrates Lincoln's isolated stand on the thirteenth amendment. I feel that Lincoln was trying to test the waters by telling Mary about the dream at all - of course, he seemed to regret his decision right after he explained the dream. "I should spare you, Molly. I shouldn't tell you my dreams." He knew that she was emotionally delicate and just tries to play it off by changing the subject. But, my theory is further testified when Elizabeth Keckley, Mary's dressmaker, enters the room halfway, takes one look at Mary, turns back around, and asks Lincoln, "Did you tell her a dream?"
This whole scene was just a consolidation of rhetorical devices, just from the dream alone. It was a great scene to include in the beginning of the movie because it was able to introduce Mary's character and solidify Lincoln's image as a kind and patient man, and foreshadow the main theme of the rest of the movie.
WORKS CITED
" Lincoln Movie Quotes: Intelligent Character Study." Movie Quotes and More. Web. 13 December 2013.
"Abraham Lincoln Children." Histclo. Web. 13 December 2013.
"Abraham Lincoln Children." Histclo. Web. 13 December 2013.