59 pages • 1 hour read
Nicholas SparksDreamland
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Colby Mills
Content Warning: This section includes discussion of domestic violence and mental illness.
A rounded character, Colby undergoes the most growth across the novel. When the novel begins, he is on his first vacation in seven years, which he has taken at the insistence of his sister and aunt. After a brief period of rebellion in his teen years, Colby has settled into a static routine, prioritizing The Bonds of Family and their livelihood over pursuing his own needs and interests. He gave up his dream of pursuing a career as a musician and dedicated himself to running the family farm. Though he has had relationships, he has not been in love.
Being away from his family responsibilities with a gig playing at a beachfront bar to a receptive audience allows Colby to focus on his passion for music, which in turn, opens him up to falling in love. His natural tendency to be reactive rather than to meticulously plan his future initially works to his advantage, as he immerses himself in his relationship with Morgan, the aspiring singer he meets after she attends one of his performances and is drawn to his talent. Over time, however, his reactiveness works against him in love. When he is unable to reach Paige after his aunt’s stroke, he immediately returns to North Carolina, deciding that he cannot continue his relationship with Morgan.
Colby’s fear of losing Morgan to her success and his guilt at feeling that he let Paige down cause him to pre-emptively to end his relationship with Morgan rather than fight for it by figuring out how to balance both their needs. His growth is a slow process, achieved only at the end of Sparks’s novel through Morgan’s support. Her commitment and faith in him as a musician and partner enables him to move beyond his fear and guilt and pursue what matters most to him.
Morgan Lee
Morgan is largely a static character who remains the same across the novel. Everything the reader knows about Morgan comes from Colby’s first-person narrative. After hearing him perform at Bobby T’s and running into him on the beach, she notices his interest in her and approaches him. Colby portrays her as confident, self-possessed, and determined to strike out on her own, away from her overprotective parents. Her dream is to become a singer, and she structured her college years carefully to prepare for this future. Her affluent family has been able to provide her with all the resources she could need and is committed to supporting her as she moves forward.
Morgan has gone through hardships as well. A severe case of scoliosis as a child brought negative attention from her peers at the exclusive private school she attended. Morgan’s cocoon of privilege could have made her complacent, but instead, she has become more driven to achieve independence and success on her own terms. She has already achieved the kind of balance in her life that Colby seeks in his own, even if he does not have access to the same resources.
At the end of the novel, Morgan has achieved the success she planned for herself: She goes to Nashville, becomes an immediate sensation, and returns to Colby insisting that they will remain a couple. Morgan goes after what she wants, in music and love.
Paige Beverly Mills
Paige provides one of the novel’s points of view through a third person limited perspective. After reaching her lowest point and attempting to die by suicide, she ends the novel re-stabilizing with her family’s support. Her narrative provides a foil for Colby’s in Florida—as he is falling in love and pursuing a dream, she is experiencing a psychotic episode brought on by the anxiety and uncertainty of their aunt’s stroke. Her narrative underscores how necessary Colby is to his family and the narrative tension between what he wants for himself and what his family needs from him.
Paige’s personal history is told from Colby’s perspective. It is from him that readers learn that Paige is the one who found her mother after she killed herself, that she raised Colby after their mother’s death, and that she is an accomplished artist and entrepreneur, capable of supporting her family financially. It is also from Colby that readers learn of Paige’s tragic losses—the death of her husband and son. The gaps in Colby’s knowledge of his sister’s experiences in her marriage remain gaps in the reader’s understanding since her narrative is entirely contained within her episode of psychosis. The extent of her troubled marriage, whether it included the physical and emotional abuse that Beverly describes, is not clear, nor is the state of her marriage prior to her husband’s death.
Once “Beverly” is revealed to be Paige, the extent of the challenges she faces from her bipolar I disorder come into sharper focus. Throughout the novel, Paige represents the most important priority in Colby’s life—his family. It’s clear that Colby feels it’s his responsibility to help keep her condition stable, taking care of her as she has always taken care of him. He is convinced that if he had been home, he would have noticed that she was not taking her medication and ensured that she get her regimen back on track before her condition escalated to the point of psychosis. When Morgan and Colby finally reunite at the conclusion of the novel, the first thing Morgan asks is to meet Paige, signaling that she understands the importance of The Bonds of Family in Colby’s life.
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