In Dreams Begin Responsibilities

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In Dreams Begin Responsibilities is a short story found in the collection In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories by Delmore Schwartz. It was first published in 1937 in the Partisan Review.

The story has a main character who is never named who is dreaming about watching a motion picture of his parents' courtship. The movie is very poor quality, and the camera is shaky. As the character watches he starts to get upset. He yells things at the screen, trying to influence the outcome of his parents' courtship and the audience of the movie begin to think he is crazy. Several times the character breaks down. In the end he shouts at his parents who look like they are going to break up, and he is dragged out of the theater by an usher who reprimands him. The animadversion is important to the story, as it reveals a bit of the character's insecurity. In the end, the character wakes up from his dream, and notes that it is the morning of his twenty-first birthday.