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Summary
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Fever Dream, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Environmental Destruction
Children and Safety
Parents and Children
Urban vs. Rural Life
Summary
Analysis
In rural Argentina, a boy named David speaks quietly into a woman named Amanda’s ear about how his body feels like it has worms in it. Amanda is lying in a bed, asking David clarifying questions. David says that the worms are important, and together he and Amanda need to figure out what created them. David takes Amanda through her memories in pursuit of this goal, though he and Amanda speak as if they are describing something which is currently happening.
Although Amanda is the adult in this mysterious situation, David speaks to her as if he is her guide. Because David and Amanda often speak as though the past is the present, there is a sense of relativity regarding time. As Amanda discusses the past, she is reexperiencing what happened to her. Traditionally, worms are symbols of death and decay because of their role as decomposers in many ecosystems. As such, David’s body feeling full of worms is an ominous sign for what is to come.
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Amanda starts by describing Carla, David’s mother, who she met a few days ago. Carla is waiting outside of Amanda’s house. Amanda does not understand why Carla wants to stay outside, though David says Carla is saving Amanda from trouble. As Amanda recalls the past, she notes that it is difficult to remember what happened because of the drugs in her system. She is lying in a hospital bed and thinks she will be dead in a few hours.
Fever Dream is a work of surrealist horror fiction and Carla’s refusal to go inside Amanda’s house indicates that either something is wrong with the house or something is amiss with Carla. Although Amanda recounts her memories mostly in chronological order, she elides certain details, which do not come up again until later in the novel. For instance, she mentions meeting Carla, but will not describe the circumstances of their first meeting until near the end of the book.
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Returning to the past, Carla and Amanda are sitting in Amanda’s car. Carla has something she wants to tell Amanda, but she is afraid because she thinks Carla will not let Nina, Amanda’s daughter, play with David anymore. Carla describes David’s childhood; he was a great little boy, the light of Carla’s life. Carla loved him dearly and was always paranoid about his safety. Unfortunately, at a young age, David became sick, which occurred around the same time Carla began working at a farm belonging to someone called Sotomayor.
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Around the same time, Carla’s husband, Omar, worked as a horse breeder. Omar was very protective of his prize stallion and rarely took his eyes off of it. One day, while Omar was away, he put Carla in charge of watching the stallion. Although Carla did as Omar said, she was not vigilant about keeping an eye on the horse. While washing dishes, she realized she had not seen the horse for some time, so she went outside to look for it.
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Outside, the stallion was nowhere in sight, so Carla assumed it jumped their fence. She knew there was a stream nearby, so she went to look there, hoping the horse was simply thirsty. Carla brought David with her, worried something could happen to him if she left him behind. In retrospect, she hates making this decision and would do anything to change it. She and David found the horse, but something horrible—she does not say what right away—happened to David.
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Before Carla can continue her story, Nina steps outside of Amanda’s house. Although she seems to have come in search of Amanda, she is not worried or afraid when she does not see her mother right away. Nina steps barefoot onto the grass and pulls some of it up with her toes, a habit she has recently acquired. While Amanda watches Nina, Carla returns to her story. As Carla was attempting to lead the stallion back home, she saw David drinking out of the stream. Right next to where he was drinking, a dead bird sat in the water. At that point, Carla urged David to stop drinking the water, which he did.
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Back at home, Carla decided against telling Omar what happened. However, the next day, the stallion was deathly ill; its entire face was so swollen that it barely resembled a horse. While Omar tended to the horse, Carla ran up to David’s room, grabbed his hands, and prayed. She knew that the horse was sick from the water it drank, and she was certain that David would soon suffer the same fate. She knew she would not have enough time to get David to a qualified medical professional. The only people nearby were rural doctors, who would take some time to get in to see, and Carla did not trust their expertise.
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As Carla talks, Amanda keeps her eyes on Nina, who is walking toward a pool. Carla, speaking about her own experience, bemoans the fact that sometimes watching children is not enough to keep them safe. Amanda wonders if what happened to Carla could also happen to her. As Amanda watches Nina, she thinks about how long it would take to reach her if something went wrong. This is something Amanda thinks about often and she even has a name for it: “rescue distance.”
Carla continues with her story. While Omar dealt with his dying horse, Carla took David to an elderly woman who lived in a green house. Many of the locals preferred the elderly woman’s expertise to that of the rural doctors, and Carla did not know where else to go. The elderly woman was a practitioner of alternative medicine who Carla believed had the ability to cure illness and even prevent miscarriages. Carla says the woman was not psychic but had the ability to read people’s energy and heal them.
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While Carla talks, Amanda continues watching Nina, who is sitting with her feet in the pool. Nearby, Nina has left her stuffed mole, a toy she always carries around. Carla notices Amanda looking at Nina and asks if they should go sit with her. Amanda says no, so instead Carla calls Nina’s name, causing Nina to run over to the car and hop in the back seat.
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With Nina in the car, Carla continues telling her story. Carla went to the woman in the green house and asked her to help David. The woman examined David and then warned Carla that the poison he ingested would soon reach his heart. The woman also knew about the poisoned stallion, even though Carla did not tell her anything about it. Suddenly interested, Nina asks Carla what happened next. However, before Carla can continue, Amanda sends Nina inside. Nina leaves while clutching her stuffed mole.
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Carla tells Amanda that the woman in the green house insisted that they perform a migration on David. A migration, as far as Carla can explain it, meant that half of David’s soul would move into another person and take half of the poison with it. According to the woman in the green house, this was the only way David would have a chance to survive the poison. Amanda interjects to asks Carla if she really believes in such things as migration, but Carla continues without answering her question.
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As the woman in the green house explained to Carla what would happen to David, David tripped and fell. Carla immediately ran to comfort him and noticed a strange look on his face. The woman in the green house warned Carla that they must perform the migration immediately. She also told Carla that they would have no control over where David’s soul ended up. Furthermore, she said David would become a “new being” because the migration also means accepting half of another person’s soul. Despite all of this, Carla allowed the woman in the green house to go through with the process.
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Amanda thinks Carla’s entire story is nonsense, though she tries not to judge Carla too harshly. She understands Carla’s pain and, as Carla tells the story, Amanda feels Carla losing David all over again. Amanda also recalls how she met Carla. At the time, Amanda thought Carla was simply visiting the region, which is what Amanda and Nina are doing. Amanda thought Carla had a certain level of sophistication, which marked her as separate from everyone else living in the area.
Carla continues describing the events leading up to David’s migration. The woman in the green house asked Carla to carry David into a different room where she would perform the migration. By this point, David was hot and swelling. Once the woman in the green house finished preparing, Carla handed David over to her. She describes this moment as the final time she held David in her arms. Then, the woman in the green house took Carla into her kitchen and asked her to stay put until the migration was finished. Carla did as the woman asked and waited for two hours. The entire time, she did not hear anything in the other room.
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When the migration was over, Carla found that she was frightened to see David. When the woman in the green house brought David to Carla, he felt like a different person; Carla could not look him in the eye, nor could she bring herself to give him a hug. On David’s wrists, she saw marks, which indicated the woman in the green house tied him down to perform the migration. Although David was tired after the migration, the woman in the green house promised Carla he would survive, which he did. Carla describes the “new David” as a “monster.”
Once Carla is finished, Amanda leaves her in the car to go looking for Nina. As she walks toward the house, she feels herself growing worried. She does not know where Nina has gone and therefore cannot calculate the rescue distance. When Amanda gets closer to the house, she can see Nina through the window, which helps her calm down. Then, she enters the house and locks the door, keeping an eye on Carla, who is still sitting in the car.
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