54 pages • 1-hour read
The Sandman Omnibus Vol. 1
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Symbols & Motifs
Dream’s Helmet
Dream’s helmet is the essential sign of his office as ruler of the dreamworld, originally created from the bones of a dead god. Dream is wearing it in the very first panel in which he appears. From Dream’s perspective, we then see his captors take the helmet away from him, enhancing the feeling of captivity and hopelessness. It’s not until 29 pages into the first issue that we see Dream’s face. The helmet is shown in the moment where Sykes trades it for magical protection and again when Alex Burgess studies the manuscript that describes Dream; he is illustrated simply, dressed in black with his helmet of office.
After Dream’s escape from his confinement, his pursuit of his helmet leads to one of the most iconic battles of the Sandman series. His mythologically inspired showdown with the demon Choronzon is considered one of the series’ finest moments; it showed readers at the end of the 1980s that the story was unlike anything that had come before.
The helmet has a psychological effect on both Dream and those around him. It makes him drastically less human-looking and also gives him a feeling of strength and purpose. In Issue 9, when Nada goes to Dream’s kingdom, he greets her while wearing his helmet. Once he recognizes her, he removes it, appearing more human and approachable. In this moment he figuratively goes from being an untouchable divinity to an emotionally driven human-like being. The helmet plays the opposite role later in Issue 22 when Dream sets off for Hell to rescue Nada. Here he dons his helmet as a way of fortifying himself before going to meet his adversary and likely his doom. Wearing it signifies his status in an official capacity, and it also symbolically removes any emotions that might betray him.
Visually, Dream’s helmet is also an allusion to DC Comics’ original Sandman character Wesley Dodds. This character ran from the 1930s to the 1940s and wore a gas mask to protect himself from the sleeping gas he used to defeat criminals. Dream’s helmet is designed to look similar to a war-time gas mask, creating a subtle homage to the original title character, though Wesley Dodds is also effectively ret-conned in Issue 1 of Sandman to be the result of the universe needing to fill Dream’s role during Dream’s imprisonment.
Hearts
Hearts are a recurring motif across Sandman, appearing at pivotal moments as well as being used to symbolize Desire. When Desire is first introduced in Issue 10, the reader is introduced to their realm—a citadel in their own image. Within it, their true home is in the only place it could be: “Desire lives in the heart” (253). Even before Desire is introduced, however, their influence is seen in the heart-shaped glass fragment in Issue 9. In this episodic story, two men discuss the love between Dream and Nada which led to the loss of their city. Before passing the story from the elder to the younger, the young man must find and return with one of the heart-shaped fragments. As the reader later learns, it was Desire’s influence that led to Dream and Nada’s forbidden love, and the city’s downfall. The city was made of glass, leaving the shards buried in the sad as artifacts and proof that the legend is real. The fact that the shard found is vaguely heart-shaped hints at Desire’s involvement of the destruction of the city.
A similar image appears later in Issue 16, when Unity Kincaid stops Dream from killing her granddaughter, Rose. She instructs her to remove the power of the vortex so it can be passed back to Unity. It appears as a faceted glass heart almost identical to Desire’s sigil and similar to the shard shown in Issue 9. Much in the way that glass shard was used to pass the power of story from one generation to another, here the glass heart is used to pass the power of the dream vortex from granddaughter to grandmother. By breaking it, Unity saves Rose and the entire realm of the Dreaming.
Once Rose returns home, Dream summons Desire with their sigil: a glass heart. Although Desire’s exact motivation is not yet revealed, the similarity between the symbols shows their mark is on the events of Rose’s story. Each of these moments symbolize Desire’s influence as well as the healing and destructive powers of love.
Books
In a story so driven by storytelling and mythology across cultures, it’s no surprise that books feature heavily as a motif. The series’ entire story arc is launched by one book in particular: the Magdalene Grimoire, which Burgess attains to try and trap Death. As Dream is captured, a heavy tome of Through the Looking Glass is also featured alongside one of the dreamers who is caught eternally in the dreamworld. As the younger Burgess grows older, he discovers the truth about Dream in another grimoire. This one stays with him through the rest of his life.
Books are also integral in Issue 17, where the muse Calliope becomes trapped by an aspiring author. Here, the writing and publication of successful novels drive the story. These are presented as a contrast to the wide range of traditional stories Sandman draws from; they are cheapened by fame and avarice. After Calliope is freed, a book is left behind in her place—one she helped her first master write.
Finally, one of the most powerful images in the series is the book that signifies Destiny’s role and the one that contains all the fates of the world: “In the beginning was the word, and it was traced by hand on the first page of his book, before ever it was spoken aloud” (551). It first appears in Issue 21 as Destiny walks through his garden.
Numerous books are also hinted at in the illustrations throughout the series. Imagery from The Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are used liberally. For example, the characters of Prinado the monkey and Luz the dodo is The Land are allusions to the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz and the dodo bird in Alice in Wonderland. respectively.
Writers themselves also make appearances—Mark Twain appears in the “Distant Mirrors” story, and Shakespeare shows up briefly in Issue 13 and then figures prominently later in Issue 19.
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