Passus 8-9

I am still very confused about the general plot of the story, which seems to just be a long series of seemingly unrelated dreams that are tied together by some kind of common theme in which the dreams is the medium through which the dreamer is trying to find something—perhaps the ultimate truth that is constantly mentioned. I think that this truth is also somehow related to looking into the dreamer’s soul and humans in general because at first values like Wrong and Mede were introduced and then now the narrator in passus 8 seems to be going into detail about how people should behave, such as with all of the quotes that say what people should and shouldn’t do, and also through the dreamer’s commentary that doing well in life is better than getting a pardon in order to get salvation: “Hit is not so syker for the soule, certus, as is do wel” (A.8.165). This seems to be promoting religious beliefs that set certain rules in life while also showing us how people can find the truth by doing certain things. Furthermore, he starts looking for something else this time—Dowel. I was pretty confused what Dowel meant, but I assumed it was relating to Do-Well? In this case, the dreamer is again searching for a way to do good things in life and eventually find the truth. Here, another value is introduced and we can see the author’s point that behaving well is the answer to finding truth. Also, Thought is introduced, who is someone that looks really similar to the dreamer: “A meke man, me thoughthe, lyk to myselven” (A.9.62). Thought states that Dowel, Dobet and Dobest are “beth not fer to fynde” (A.9.71), in other words, not far to find, showing us that somehow Thought is a part of the dreamer’s soul that knows the whereabouts of how to behave well and to find truth. In this way, Thought is similar to Reason since both can be thought of as characteristics of the human soul that lead to the truth. By showing the dreamer searching for this truth through people who represents parts of him and the human soul, we can sort of see how the parts of the human soul work together to solve the mystery—which in the old definition, is to find the religious truth.