“In Dreams Begin Responsibilities” borrows its title from the poet-playwright W. B. Yeats, who used a version of the quotation (“In dreams begins responsibility”) as the epigraph to a play—and credited it to a different, unnamed play. The title has an aphoristic quality, and it serves as a thesis statement for the story. Although the narrator’s experience is a study of Dreams and Disappointment, the story suggests that life’s disappointments and failed dreams can build character, pointing the way toward Maturity and Responsibility. This progress is not inevitable, however, and depends on the dreamer’s willingness to accept responsibilities and cope with existing circumstances.

The story’s conflict takes place entirely inside the narrator’s head (his dream world), but the narrator implies that the dream is grounded in his real-life circumstances, including the turmoil of his parents’ relationship. In the dream, there is a movie in which the narrator’s father courts the narrator’s mother, Rose, several years before the narrator’s birth. As the father walks toward Rose’s home to take her on a date, he weighs whether to propose marriage, establishing the main tension in the story.