On Dreams and Nightmares in Baillie's Orra

In Act 2 Scene 1 Orra has a monologue where she talks about dreams, and what she finds most terrifying about them. In the scene, Alice talks about a night where she comes across Orra in her bedroom and observes that she is having a very fitful sleep. Alice thought about waking her, but decided not to and Orra is thankful about that. She explains in her monologue (105) that she isn't afraid of bad dreams, she is afraid of waking up in the middle of the night after a bad dream.

Orra explains, "Before mine eyes pass all incongruous things,/Huge, horrible, and strange, on which I stare/as idiots do upon this changeful world," (105) The key phrase here is "as idiots do." While you are dreaming you are not aware of what is going on, you are hardly even aware that you are in a dream. You see horrible fantastical things but they do not process. You have no reason or sense to register what you are seeing. Even though the images might be horrifying, they "pass by" and are forgotten. However once you wake up, you become aware again. You regain your usual mental capacities and are able to make "sense" of what you have seen in your nightmares. This is what Orra is afraid of:  the awful realizations your logical, awake mind makes in the dark after it's been primed from images inspired by her nightmares.

Pictured: The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli

This monologue is more than just an explanation of dreams and nightmares, it is also a meditation on the nature of Fear, the main "passion" that Baillie is fixating for this particular play. Think about Orra's dream monologue but replace "Dream" with "Ghost Story." Now think about the way Orra's superstitious fear develops throughout the play, specifically the way Cathrina implants the fear in Orra's psyche by telling her the ghost story of the Count of Hugo. In a way, the ghost story performs the role of a dream or nightmare. They are a series of "Huge, horrible, and strange" images passing before her eyes: the horn being blown three times, the haunted castle, the image of the hunter-knight stalking the descendants of Hugo. Although Orra is immediately disturbed upon hearing the story from Cathrina, this is equivalent to Orra tossing and turning as she has a nightmare. The actual "dreadful waking" doesn't take place until she is alone in the dark in the haunted castle locked in her room. This is where she, in a sense, wakes up and her mind recalls the images from the ghost story and starts "Shaping their forms distinctively and vivid/to visions horrible" (105)

This is the nature of Orra's fear. As we've seen this isn't a fear that preys on the weak minded. What I mean by that is that this fear that consumes Orra is fueled by her reason and sense. To reiterate once more: it's not the nightmare that drives Orra mad, it's the waking up. Orra might have been experienced "Horror" when she saw the figure of the Hunter-Knight emerge from the trap door, but it's the "Terror" that she experienced for days before hand that really pushed her over the edge. The fear Orra experiences develops slowly; it is insidious.

Also just because Orra becomes consumed by superstitious fear, it doesn't follow that Orra is necessarily superstitious. If she hadn't been primed by Cathrina's ghost stories she wouldn't have been so completely consumed by fear. To put this idea into perspective, let's take a hypothetical person, Annabelle. Annabelle doesn't believe in evil satanic dolls but over the weekend Annabelle saw a movie about evil satanic dolls that really impressed her. Let's say that as a prank Annabelle's mischievous friends put several creepy vintage dolls in her room as she sleeps, and then Annabelle wakes up around midnight and finds herself surrounded by creepy dolls. You wouldn't say that Annabelle believes in satanic dolls, but you would understand her unfathomable terror upon waking up. Now perhaps Annabelle would be terrified of finding random dolls in her room even if she hadn't seen that horror movie, but being primed with that horror movie would definitely increase the horror exponentially.

Pictured: Creepy Satanic Doll

To conclude, I want to briefly discuss what exactly it is about the story of the Count of Hugo that impresses Orra so much. Of course anybody would be a little uneasy around the idea of a murderous ghost that is out to kill you, but there is something about this tale that really resonated with Orra. In the above Annabelle example, I don't think that creepy dolls would send Annabelle over the edge of sanity. There is something going on with Orra, deep in her subconscious. I suspect that it might have something to do with her uneasiness about the Patriarchy, and her fears about being dominated by a husband. Orra doesn't make it a secret that she is uncomfortable around the idea of marriage and losing control of her land and positions. It's interesting that the ghost story that drives her crazy is the traditional, cliche Gothic trope of the sins of the father coming back to destroy his descendants. It's also interesting since the usual victims for this specific type of vengeful spirit are usually powerful, aristocratic men, and yet in this case Orra feels like she is the victim of this angry spirit.

Pictured: "Angry Spirits"

Discussion Questions:

What is Orra really afraid of? Is it really just the ghost of the Hunter-Knight? Or is it something deeper? What is her real nightmare?

Other than the "Sins of the Father" trope, what other classic Gothic story telling devices does Baillie employ in her play, and how do they add to the evolution of fear in Orra?