Essay Questions

What is especially unusual about Dibs’ use of pronouns?

Of course, the most usual instance of pronounce self-reference is the use of the first-person. Generally speaking, the bulk of the population uses first-person pronouns to refer to themselves by saying things like “I want to…” and “…about me.” Less frequent, but exactly unusual is the motivation of some to refer themselves in the third-person. Examples range from the fictional like in the classic episode of Seinfeld, “Jimmy’s down!” to the absurdity of Donald Trump persistently referring to himself as “Trump” when he speaks. While this affectation seems bizarre, at least it is immediately understandable as a demonstration of narcissistic self-interest or something along those lines.

When Dibs first begins showing up for play therapy, however, he engages in an exceptionally unusual use of pronoun self-reference that is also quite confusing: “You will take off your hat and coat,” he said. To any reasonable person, this would immediately be understood as Dibs telling you (the other person in the room) to remove those items of clothing. Unless, perhaps, you were not actually wearing a coat and hat. This is the case with Dr. Axline who immediately understands that Dibs is actually referring to himself in the second-person, a situation perhaps even rarer in real life than it is as the narrative point of view in fiction where it remains extraordinarily uncommon.

How is knowing the truth about Dibs’ parents feelings toward him also compromised by “pronoun trouble”?

It is difficult to know for sure anything about how his father Dibs’ father does not have much of an active role in the narrative. Even when he does speak, there is the temptation to question the validity and veracity of his honesty. Most of what is known about the parental reaction to Dibs arrives courtesy of his mother and is yet another result of “pronoun trouble.” Just as Dibs creates confusion by using the second-person perspective toward himself, the confessions of Dibs’ mother are problematic. She is, by contrast, exceedingly more open than her husband, but that does not necessarily translate into being more honest. Why? Because at almost every point, Dibs’ mother uses the collective first-person pronoun “we” to describe feelings that may only be attributable to her. What is especially intricate and thorny is when she ping-pongs back and forth between first-person singular and first-person collective as on the many occasions when “I” and “he” and “we” become so populous within a single outpouring of emotion that it is difficult to track who she is really blaming.

Ultimately, who does Dibs’ mother wind up blaming for Dibs’ problems?

Dibs’ mother is quite a complex creature. She is, as mentioned, almost superhumanly open, demonstrating a remarkably lack of self-censoring about her worst attributes. She is also given to highly emotional outpourings of guilt and shame and blame directed toward both herself and her husband. But in the end, as the therapy starts to work and Dibs begins to come out of his shell and behave more rationally, she ultimately confesses all. And that all is almost too honest to bear without feeling a cavernous disregard for her. In a moment of pure unbridled lack of self-censorship she confesses “We blamed Dibs. Poor little Dibs. Everything that went wrong between us was his fault. Everything was his fault.” A half-hearted attempt to make shade and color that outpouring of honesty is made, but it is too late. The truth is out and there is no going back. Although the pronounce trouble mentioned above makes it still a thorny issue, one does feel as though she is definitely speaking for both herself and her husband.