The Vine By Robert Herrick: Poem Analysis

People do not typically believe that their dreams are the psyche’s attempt to make conscious of things we have repressed. This can be a terrifying realization that each dream has an underlying meaning that expresses our disturbing subconscious desires. The poem “The Vine” shows that the speaker has subconscious desires about sexually entrapping a woman without her approval. The speaker in Robert Herrick’s “The Vine” struggles with the tension between the latent and manifest content of his dream until his superego overpowers his sinister desires.
First off, the underlying meaning or latent content of this dream can be that the speaker feels powerless in his conscious life and copes with this by fantasizing about trapping women physically and sexually. This feeling of powerlessness can be in direct relation
The latent content of the dream can be interpreted that the speaker clearly feels powerful in his disturbing dream but struggles with it in his awake life. When readers look at the underlying reasoning behind the dream we begin to understand the repressed feelings the speaker hides in his psyche. The speaker shows his power struggle in the beginning of the poem, “I dreamed this mortal part of mine / Was metamorphosed to a vine, / Which crawling one and every way / Enthralled my dainty Lucia” (1-4). The speaker believes that transforming himself into a vine will allow him to wrap and enslave this woman so she has to sexually surrender to him. The speakers use of the word enthrall allows readers to understand that this woman is enslaved and has lost all power and freedom. If you get stuck in a vine you are practically immobile and the more you fight its effects the tighter the vine becomes. As the vine tightens it becomes more powerful and the victim therefore becomes weaker. As readers get deeper into the poem you realize that the vine is trapping more of the woman’s body so she completely loses control of