Which character is best characterized as a dreamer in E.A. Robinson's poetry?

• A. Richard Cory
• B. Miniver Cheevy
• C. Luke Havergal
• D. Mr. Flood's Party

Answer: (A)

Dreamers in Robinson’s verse are shaped by imagined possibilities that outshine or even override present reality. Richard Cory fits this idea because the town projects a perfect, dreamlike life onto him—wealth, refinement, calm happiness—so he becomes the living embodiment of an ideal they long for. That outward dream about his life is powerful, even as the poem reveals a hollow under the surface when Cory ends his own life. The irony highlights how the dream others hold can be as potent as any internal fantasy. While Miniver Cheevy, Luke Havergal, and Mr. Flood’s Party each engage with longing or fantasy, Richard Cory most clearly functions as a dreamer in the social sense—someone whose life becomes the subject of collective dreamwork, which Robinson uses to sharpen his critique of appearances and happiness.