Rhetorical Devices Within A Dream Paradox

“A Dream Within a Dream” by Edgar Allen Poe caught my eye because it reminded me of the matrix. In the poem, Poe’s speaker is flung into a mental war with himself, questioning his own existence and the deeper meanings of life. Poe begins his poem by telling an anecdote about a conversation he had with his lover. In the conversation, he is departing from his love, but says to her that she is not wrong to think that everything which we know is “but a dream within a dream” (11). This raises a very interesting paradox. If his lover, who he believes to be a part of his dream, has come up with this idea, then where has it truly come from. This theme of paradox is continued in the second stanza. The setting switches to a beach, where the speaker watches