Blackness is closing in around the eyes of one brave soul. Next thing they know, all they can see is another’s dream, if they’re lucky. In small town, Michigan, Janie has this wild ability. If she passes one dreaming, she is immediately sucked in and cannot escape unless the dream ends. Throughout the trilogy of Don’t Close Your Eyes, Janie struggles with the curse she is blessed with, while she faces normal teenage girl problems. One of the issues she encounters amongst the trilogy is falling in love with Cabel. Cabel is Janie’s love interest throughout this novel and he helps her with her dream problem.
Helping Janie may include her being in his nightmares, or him helping while she struggles within another’s nightmare or dream. Janie then learns that when she is sucked into a dream, she loses abilities she thought she would always have, such as sight and the use of her hands. Janie has to choose either losing the abilities and maybe passing away early, or helping with the local police station and loving Cabel or becoming isolated and never having human contact again. In this novel, Janie may be represented by the song “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5, Cabel can be represented by “Hey There Delilah” by Plain White T’s, and Miss Stubin can be seen through the song “Supermarket Flowers” by Ed Sheeran.
In the novel, Don’t Close Your Eyes, Janie is the main character and has a unique issue along with other family and friend issues. She also has a one-of-a-kind personality that can be compared to the song, “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5. Janie’s unique problem miliates the people around her and herself. Her friend and family issues are; her mom is an alcoholic, and she is lonely-cool-but-only-once-you-get-to-know-her-kind-of person. In the beginning novel, Janie describes her social life, “Janie ashes for stinging hands carefully, dries them, and sits down next to her mother, hoping she’ll notice. Hoping she’ll say something” (13 McMann).
For many reasons, a few stated above, Janie feels as if she will never loved and is also scared to love either the friends that come into her life, or the boys she may fancy. In the song, Adam Levine talks about a girl who is lonely and living on the streets. Although, Janie doesn’t live on the streets, she is still just a girl who wants to be loved. The lyrics that represent Janie the most are, “Beauty queen of only eighteen, She had some trouble with herself, He was always here to help her, She always belonged to someone else”“. This set of lyrics represents Janie because not only was she literally eighteen, but she struggled to let Cabel in but he was always there to help her. Janie never really “belonged” to someone else until Cabel, but she belonged to her crippling curse.
Her curse made her open later on just as Adam Levine wrote about in his song. Janie struggled with many things throughout the entirety of this novel, and many of her hardships can be represented through the song “She Will Be Loved” by Adam Levine. Janie’s love interest is Cabel Strumheller. Cabel is the boy who as the outcast in one grade, then ended up becoming the boy who everyone talked to and liked in the blink of an eye. Cabel was good for Janie because together they found out what love really was. In the novel, Cabel puts his feelings about Janie into words, “I love you, Janie Hannagan. I can’t get enough of you. I wake up in the morning and all I want to do is be with you” (248 McMann). This quote shows that Cabel is not the tough looking guy he once was; he would put down whatever he was doing and would drive to New York if he had to for Janie.
This love Cabel had for Janie and Cabel’s personality can be represented y the song “Hey There Delilah” by The Plain White T’s. In this classic love song, written by this group, they sing their hearts out about how one guy would write all the songs in the world if it meant being able to see his girl and give her life she wanted. The man would do anything for the girl, if she said jump, he would ask, “how high? “. The lyrics that represent Cabel’s love for Janie the best are; “But girl, tonight you look so pretty, Yes you do, Times Square can’t shine as bright as you, I swear it’s true, Hey there, Delilah, Don’t you worry about the distance, I’m right there if you get lonely”.
These lyrics represent Cabel because they show his implacable way of never giving up on loving Janie, no matter what happens later on in their lives. Cabel believed that Janie was the prettiest girl on the earth, and he never wanted her to hurt, he just wanted to love her the only way he knew how. Both Janie and Cabel were in bad places when they met each other, together they overcame all of the odds against them, and Cabel found a girl to love who needed loving. One of the three main characters in Don’t Close Your Eyes, Miss Stubin, was Janie’s savior in many ways.
Miss Stubin also ad the same curse that Janie had, although she knew how to control and help more than Janie ever did. Miss Stubin was a kind, old woman who was blind and lived in the Hospice Care place Janie worked at. Miss Stubin never married and was blind and crippled because of her ability. Throughout the novel, Miss Stubin made appearances after she passed to assist Janie in controlling and using her abilities in the right way, even when they did take her sight and hand control.
She was an angel to Janie, a guardian angel. She led Janie to answers she never would have known and guided her to show how much Cabel ctually did love her. In the novel, Miss Stubin appears in one of the dreams Janie is sucked into and gives Janie some words of advice, “Dreams happen in the strangest places. Watch for them” (315 McMann). This quote is an example of how motherly or even grandmotherly Miss Stubin was to Janie on earth and even when Miss Stubin wasn’t here in human form. Janie met Miss Stubin in the care place, thinking she was an infinitesimal part of her life, but in reality she was one of the biggest changes. The song, “Supermarket Flowers” by Ed Sheeran represents Miss Stubin in many ways.
The lyrics that represent Miss Stubin the best is, “ Oh, I’m in pieces. It’s tearing me up but I know, A heart that’s broke is a heart that’s been loved, So, l’ll sing Hallelujah, You were an angel in the shape of my mum, When I fell down, you’d be there holding me up, Spread your wings as you go, And when God takes you back, He’ll say, “Hallelujah, you’re home. “. These lyrics represent Miss Stubin by the impact she had on Janie and her life. Janie was sad and in pieces when Miss Stubin, but she realized that Miss Stubin had left her with valuable information and love that she would never get from her own blood.
Miss Stubin may have passed, but she was always there for Janie leading her in the right directions. Janie Hannagan is one unique girl. She struggles with an alcoholic mother, accepting love, and her curse of being sucked into other’s dreams. Throughout the trilogy Janie tries to deal with normal teenage stuff while she tries to save other lives and help the community. Janie Hannagan can be represented by the song, “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5. Cabel Strumheller can be represented by the song, ” Hey There Delilah” by Plain White T’s and Miss Stubin can be represented by the song “Supermarket Flowers” by Ed Sheeran.
