Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin
Aprenda jogando
Responda a estas perguntas para ganhar energia, depois pesque e explore. Sem precisar de conta.
Para educadores: slides de aula, resumos de revisão prontos para usar de Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin (English, World Literature) — use na sua aula ou rode o tópico como atividade interativa de turma que seus aprendizes jogam como um jogo ao vivo.
Notas de aula
The novel and its context
- ×Fever Dream×(2014) by Argentinian writer Samanta Schweblin; Spanish title ×Distancia de rescate×("rescue distance"); translated by Megan McDowell (2017), shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize.
- A short, surreal horror novel set in the Argentinian countryside, a few hours from Buenos Aires.
- Its real horror is man-made: the agrochemicals (pesticides) used on industrial farms, which poison water, animals and children.
- Set for 2026 only (not 2027).
- Quotations below follow McDowell's translation.
Structure: a dialogue with a dying woman
- The whole novel is one conversation. Amanda lies in a rural clinic bed, dying; David, a local boy, whispers in her ear, pushing her to retell the last few days.
- David's words appear in×italics×; Amanda narrates in plain type — and sometimes their voices blur.
- David insists they must find the exact moment the worms are born — the moment of poisoning. He keeps saying "That's not important" when Amanda drifts to her fears.
- Amanda speaks of the past as if it is happening now, so time loops and slips.
- Her memory is drugged and fading: an unreliable narrator racing against death.
Carla's story
- On holiday with her daughter Nina, Amanda meets Carla, a glamorous local mother who works for Sotomayor, the biggest farmer in the area.
- Carla tells how her husband Omar's prize stallion escaped; she took her son David to find it, and he drank from a stream where a dead bird lay. The stallion sickened and died.
- Terrified, Carla took David to the woman in the green house, a healer, who performed a migration: half of David's spirit moved into another body, and part of another spirit came into his.
- Afterwards Carla feels David is a stranger — she calls him a "monster". He has white spots on his skin; dead ducks are buried in the yard. David says: "Burying isn't the same as killing."
- Carla's story is supernatural; Amanda, a city woman, is sceptical — the novel never settles which reading is true.
Rescue distance and the poisoning
- Amanda's obsession is rescue distance: the variable distance, in time, it would take her to reach Nina if something happened. She imagines an invisible rope between them that pulls taut when danger is near.
- After a frightening incident with David in her house, Amanda decides to leave — but first stops to apologise to Carla at Sotomayor's farm.
- Men unload plastic barrels from a truck; Amanda and Nina sit on wet grass. Nina says she is all wet; Amanda thinks it is dew. This is the moment of poisoning — the danger the rope never sensed.
- Amanda collapses. The clinic's nurse, hearing they are outsiders, calls it sunstroke. Everything around Carla's house is dead; there are 28 graves on the lawn.
- Driving away at dawn, Amanda meets a line of children with deformities — including David — being led to the clinic's "waiting room". She sends Nina for help and loses her.
The ending
- Carla confesses that she took the dying Nina to the woman in the green house for a migration.
- David "pushes" the dying Amanda forward to see the future: her husband visits Omar, desperate to know why Nina has come back to him different.
- Omar has no answers; he used to breed horses and now there are no animals. Carla has gone.
- In the husband's car, David sits in Nina's seat holding Nina's stuffed mole — hinting part of Nina may be in David. The husband puts him out and drives to Buenos Aires.
- He notices nothing of the poisoned landscape — the thing that matters, the "rope finally slack", goes unseen.
Themes
- Environmental destruction: the countryside's intense green hides poison; livestock, ducks and children are its victims.
- Parents and children: two mothers — Amanda over-protective, Carla desperate and estranged from her son. Both love; both fail to prevent harm.
- Children and safety: rescue distance watches for visible dangers and misses the invisible one.
- Urban and rural: Amanda romanticises the countryside; locals live with — and hide — its costs; outsiders get dismissed.
- Uncertainty and belief: medicine versus the green house; the supernatural as a way of explaining what is otherwise too terrible to say.
Symbols and methods
- The rope: love and vigilance — slack at the end, like a lit fuse.
- Worms: the sensation of poison in the body, and death and decay.
- Dew / the barrels: the harmless-seeming appearance of the chemicals.
- The stuffed mole: Nina's innocence; its reappearance with David is chilling.
- The green house: healing and belief — and, ironically, green like the poisoned fields.
- Methods: dialogue form, italics, foreshadowing, suspense created by David's refusal to answer, ambiguity, and short, breathless paragraphs.
Slides
Sign up free to view the lesson slides
Step through every slide for this topic — plus flashcards and revision notes — with a free account.
Questões de prática
Prévia grátis — 8 de 42 perguntas. Cadastre-se para ver todas.
1.Who wrote Fever Dream?
Easy- ASamanta Schweblin
- BMegan McDowell
- CIsabel Allende
- DJorge Luis Borges
2.Where is Fever Dream set?
Easy- ABuenos Aires city centre
- BMexico City
- CThe Chilean coast
- DThe Argentinian countryside
3.What is the original Spanish title of Fever Dream?
Easy- ALa casa verde
- BLos gusanos
- CDistancia de rescate
- DSueño de fiebre
4.What is 'rescue distance'?
Easy- AThe length of the drive to Buenos Aires
- BThe time it would take Amanda to reach Nina if something happened
- CThe distance to the nearest hospital
- DHow far the barrels were from the grass
5.In what form is the whole novel told?
Easy- AA conversation between the dying Amanda and David
- BLetters between Amanda and her husband
- CCarla's diary
- DA police report
6.What is David trying to make Amanda find?
Medium- AWhere Carla hid the money
- BThe name of the woman in the green house
- CThe way back to Buenos Aires
- DThe exact moment the worms are born
7.How was David first poisoned, according to Carla?
Medium- AHe was bitten by a snake
- BHe drank from a pesticide barrel
- CHe drank from a stream where a dead bird lay
- DHe ate poisoned berries
8.What does the woman in the green house do to save David?
Medium- ABuries him in the garden
- BPerforms a 'migration' of part of his spirit into another body
- CGives him hospital medicine
- DSends him to Buenos Aires
Unlock all 42 questions, flashcards & more
Crie uma conta grátis para ver todas as perguntas, os slides, flashcards e resumos de revisão deste tópico.
Provas anteriores
A prática com provas anteriores deste tópico chega em breve.
Em breve