George Moore's The Untilled Field

Dreams are a link to the subconscious mind, and George Moore dared to imagine what his characters would find in their flights of fancy. In The Untilled Field, (almost entitled, The Passing of the Gael) the desires of the characters are revealed though their dreams, thus displaying the unified need to create a new Ireland for a kind of nourishment of the soul. Moore displays through visions, dreams address the needs of reality, and ideas that speak with a life of their own, that Ireland is invented through the willfulness of the people.

There are three significant times when dreams are more then flights of fantasy, in The Untilled Field. When a dream is referred to as a vision, it takes on an entirely new context which does not always imply simply religious ecstasy. The desire of the characters who experience visions in ‘Some Parishioners,' ‘The Clerk's Quest' and ‘The Exile,' proves to be an overwhelming force that is so great it alters the surrounding environment with psychic force.