After many years in prison—twelve, the midrash will say–, Yosef becomes the Great Vizier of the Land of Egypt, something equivalent to the Prime Minister of the greatest potency of that part of the world. Not only that, he would have the power to subjugate other peoples just on the account of this incredible gift he had: interpreting dreams and, with them, omens that would affect the entire region.
But, in order to make a positive use of that, Yosef had to endure years of life in a dungeon, deprived of any kind of comfort—his father, his family, his land, clean clothing, the field and its animals, good sun, good food, good water. He spent years in the dark, only hoping that God would deliver him from that void of others and... excess of himself, maybe?
Following the idea given in Vayeshev that his brothers saved him from himself and his arrogance and spoiledness, I would like to suggest that Yosef got trapped inside himself until he was ready to use his knowledge for the common good. So, although evidently the outer layer of the thin cows and ears have the meaning of seven years of famine, for which Egypt should prepare, we can also read what kind of preparation Yosef himself should do to face it. After growing up considering himself with enormous grandeur, be it for his dream-interpreting gift or for his father's preference for him, and later maybe even for Potifar's wife lust for him, he spent a huge amount of time incarcerated, that is to say, God gave him the opportunity to spend years and years with the company of the person he considered the most important in hiw own life: himself.
Even the dream of the cupbearer and the bread-maker would sign that he had the knowledge of who will live, who will perish—the text is not so explicit, but there might have been even some contempt in his voice when he announced the fate of this mates. He was not ripe yet, not mature. He had to be “forgotten” in the depths of himself yet some more.
And then, someday, as it is usually the case, he got mature enough to look at the world’s matters, at people’s lives, with affection and respect… Which is clearly seen when he announces something big about Egypt, not his own kin, but “the other”. Of course, Egypt will not be the complete other until after Moshe, but it is still another, a regular kind of other. And Yosef does not care, he pronounces the fate of that people and all surrounding peoples with maturity—and it is this maturity that makes Pharaoh employ him as his right arm, and not the fact that he made a good guess about the meaning of his dreams. Something resonated inside Pharaoh’s heart (and we know how important the biblical author deems Pharaoh’s heart) and it was not simply an interpretation that made sense, but much more than that: an interpretation that was uttered with respect for humans, with a warm heart and plain knowledge of how much people can suffer. And these features qualify a man to occupy the office of the solution-bearer. Yosef, having gone through much suffering and endured it without hardening his own heart too much, was ready. And indeed, he was.
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