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Section 1 (Chapters 1 - 11)
Kip goes to store to buy bread for Ma-a quest
Pynchon's Crying of Lot 49-greatest quest novel of the last century, "Oedipa Mass" drives from Southern Cali to San Fran, she
learns to rely on herself, follows quest conventions
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight-great narrative of eng. lit, cartoonish elements
Faerie Queen-Same as above
Sophocles' Oedipus the King-doesn't know who he is, CoL heroine is a play on the name
Random Quest Novel Exs.-Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, North by Northwest, Huck Finn
Freud said "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" when someone teased him on the cigar's phallic shape
Fieldings' Tom Jones-The meal man eats with lady friend represents communion (sexually) the descriptions of how the
characters are eating is meant to sound erotic.
Carver's Cathedral-Bigoted narrator sees blind man eat and feels sense of solidarity (communion), later they smoke weed(
another reference to communion)
Tylers' Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant-Mother tries to assemble family for fam dinner-fails-dies-family finally gets
together and eats, "Her life and death become part of the common experience"
Joyce's The Dead-Describes the sumptous fare of a dinner party held on the day of Epiphany (12 day of Christmas) where
main character Gabriel realizes he is not superior to everyone else. The holiday unifying meal stands at odds to the tensions of
the meal. The reader feels as though they are at the meal due to the elaborate description, and thus the theme of communion is
seen throughout.
Ghosts, evil twins, and vampires are about something besides themselves, EX:A Christmas Carol, Dr. J and Mr. Hyde, Mr.
Ballantanea (also by stevenson)
Rice's Interview with a Vampire and Vampire Chronicle Series-Started teen vampire phenomenon
Meyers' Twilight-Innovated genre by centering book on teen girl
James' The Turn of the Screw-Governess tries to protect two kids from ghost, "Ghost" and Governess "consume" the boy in
their attempts to protect him, like vampires they suck his life force away
James' Daisy Miller-Daisy deals with the old and stifling attitude of the man Winterbourne, whose attention she desires, she
eventually dies of malaria, but it is inferred that Winterbourne sucked the life out of her.
19th century works with thin line between ordinary and monsterous-Hardy's Tess de' Ubervilles, Kafka: The Metamorphosis,
A Hunger Artist,
Characters viciously destroy one another in life and death contests of will-Fox, Women in Love, A Severed Head
O'Briens Going after Cacciato-borrows from a variety of other works, Pocahantes, Alice in Wonderland (when he falls into
fox hole)
There is only one story: The Thousand and one nights, Beloved, Jack and the Beanstalk, The epic of gilgamesh, The story of
O, The simpsons
Reworkings of classic tales: Boyle's The Overcoat 2 (Gogols overcoat), Trevor's Two more Gallents (Two Gallents),
Gardner's Grendel (Beowulf)
Carter's Wise Family-Theatrical family makes a living performing shakespeare, and their lives mimic occurrences in
Shakespearean works. ALL BOOKS THAT USE OTHER BOOKS=INTERTEXTUALITY
Death Valley Days-Wild West Show, Shakespearean undertones
West Side Story-Reworking of Romeo and Juliet
Carter's Wise Children-Children who are illegitimate daughters of a Shakespeare actor, stron Shakespearean undertones
TS Eliot's The Lovesong of J. Alffred Prufcock-Prufcock says he "isnt cut out to be a tragic hero like Hamlet", the specific
shakespeare ref illuminates the meaning of the poem, intertextuality
Fugard's Master Harold......and the Boys-About maturation and aparthed, Parallels the sotry of Henry IV part II, boy Hally
must mature and take up mantle of his family's title, just as Henry had to mature and etc. etc.
Morrison's Beloved-4 white men on horses come to enslave Sethe and fam(4 horseman of apocalypse-Bible)
Joyce's Araby-Boy in love with Managan's sister overhears the crude flirting of two people at the market and losses his
innocence- mimics the fall of Adam and Eve
Rushdie's Satanic Verses-characters parody events in Quaran, people don't understand irony, religous allusion
Welty's Why I live at the P.O-Narrator is mad a younger sister who has returned home after living suspiciously-Prodigal Son
reference
Morrison's Song of Solomon-Children are named by opening up to random name in the Bible, shows the extreme trust in God
even though he can't read the book
Baldwin's Sonny's Blues-Guy sends Bro a drink while he plays in jazz band "cup of trembling" refernce to Isaiah, establishes
that the Bro may or may not return to wayward ways
Ch. 8 Hanseldee and Greteldum
Hansel and Gretel-Fairy tale with most drawing power for the writer in the late 20th century
Carter's Bloody Chamber-depicts fairy tales as sexist
Not a book, but it is an extended metaphor-Rich people lost in bad area mimics story of hansel and gretel and babes in woods
their symbols of power make them vulnerable and makes finding their way difficult
All literature grows out of other literature.
Modern people have varied knowledge of literature, but tend to know kiddie lit like Alice in Wonderland, Cat in the Hat,
Chronicles of Narnia.
People throughout ages like the idea of lost children--
The Gingerbread House by Coover doesnt show witch, stops before traditional meeting with witch, to show our conditioned
responses
simply have to change aspects to modern items, different temptations, instead of gingerbread drugs etc.
9-Its Greek to Me
Bearheart: The Heirship Chronicles refers back to Native American heritage
Song of Solomon-Toni Morrison has Icarian myth
Greek + Roman myth pervasive in Western culture
Brueghel- painting- Landscape with the fall of Icarus, shows the insignificance of each persons life, icarus legs in the bottom
corner
Derek Walcotts Omeros uses same characters from Iliad and Odyssey
Virgils Aeneid, Aeneas goes wherever Odysseus or Achilles did. Why, because Homer already defined what it means to be a
hero
Joyces Ulysses is a funhouse distortion of the Odyssey
10-Its More than just Rain or Snow
Never just rain, Lawrences Virgin and the Gypsy-flood goes through homestead= Noahs flood
Thomas Hardys The Three Strangers, rain serves a plot function to push people together, creates a mysterious atmosphere, +
falls on everyone indiscriminately
Song of Solomon- Hagar tries to buy all these new clothes to make herself into the woman she thinks her former love wants
her to be, then the rain falls and ruins it, cleansing her of the illusion and false ideal of beauty
Hemingways A Farewell to Arms-rain after Henrys lover dies during childbirth, rain ironic- because it signifies spring
Joyces The Dead- rain as spring idea clashes with less literary idea of cold pneumonia and death
In Jesse Westons From Ritual to Romance, talks about Fisher King mythology, something wrong with society, hero comes to
restore fertility (Arthurian legend). TS Eliots the Waste Land mimics this.
Lawrences the Rainbow, rainbows come after rain, you can expect flood imagery.
Bishops the Fish, Dickens Bleak House, Henry Greens Party Going, Gass Pedersen Kid, Snow Man by Wallace Stevens.
Foster just basically lists these saying they all have precipitation imagery.
Interlude-Does he Mean That
Yes (Foster 82).
Joyces Ulysses, Eliots Waste Land, both fully intend references to myth
Faulkners Absalom Absalom is a version of Oresteia Trojan war Civil War
11-More than Its Gonna Hurt You: Concerning Violence
Morrisons Beloved, Mother kills her child rather than the child joins slavery
violence is intimate
Robert Frosts Out Out- child killed by machine, life insignificant to universe
2 categories of violence :1. specific injury author causes character to visit on one another or themselves 2. narrative violence
that causes characters harm in general
Lawrences Women in Love violent relationships
Lawrence uses violence heavily, symbolic of the clash of societys values and its progression, for ex. above clash of
capitalism and moral values.
He also uses mythic symbolism with the violence to stress for fertility to be restored, potent male, and fertile female must be
matched
Go Down Moses by Faulkner, slave kills herself as an outlet, much as Moses sets people free


Section 2 (Chapters 12 - Interlude - One Story)
Chapter 12
John Bunyan - The Pilgrims Progress
allegory, names indicate their qualities (Faithful, Christian, Giant Despair)
Orwells Animal Farm
Easy to figure out, revolutions fail, power corrupts
Forsters A Passage to India
possible assault in cave, heroines name (Adela Quested) symbolic, cave symbolic
cave forces her with deepest fears
Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
river is symbolic, floods and kills, river used to escape to freedom, both danger and safety,
Cranes The Bridge
Mississippi River - all American rivers, immense length, north/south together, but east/west not
Eliots The Waste Land
River Thames, carries bodies, slimy, dirty, symbolizes corruption of modern life
Frosts Mowing
mowing field with scythe, symbolizes labor
Frosts After Apple Picking
apple picking = point in life/season, wear and tear of living on the psyche
Chapter 13 - Its All Political
Dickens A Christmas Carol
political, based on Thomas Malthus (helping poor increased poverty), Schrooge is representative
DH Lawrences Women in Love
robin looks like Lloyd-George, radical individualism in conflict with established institutions
Poes The Masque of the Red Death, The Fall of the House of Usher
deals with nobility, criticism of class system, European monarchy is corrupt social organization
former: prince gathers friends, locks them away from poor
latter: Usher and sister are last survivors of old aristocratic family -> everything is decaying
Rip Van Wrinkle
guy gets away from wife, sleeps for 20 years, dog is gone, gun rusted, wife is dead, everything has changed
liberty has problems, broken windows, tyranny is dead, defining what it means to be American
Sophocles Oedipus at Colonus
written at end of Athenian greatness, use a leader like Theseus to keep Athens from total ruin
Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway
ideas were judged based on class and gender of person putting them forward
Chapter 14 - Yes, Shes a Christ Figure, Too
Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea
Old man = Jesus, abundance of Christian imagery
Chapter 15 - Flight
Morrisons Song of Solomon
Flying is freedom, free from burdens
Pilate, Milkmans aunt, had the power of flight but she never left the ground -> spiritual
Carters Nights at the Circus
Fevvers possesses wings, flights are indoors, freedom is paradoxical
Mrquezs A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings
falls from sky, dirty and smelly, put in cage, angel
Weldons Heart and Lives of Men
act of falling from heights and surviving is miraculous
Joyces A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Stephen is secluded by strictures of Irish life, understanding of flight is purely symbolic, but he literally needs to escape
Yeats The Wild Swans at Coole
watches birds rise and wheel, man feels pull of gravity more heavily each year
contrasts birds and woes of humans
Frosts Birches
climbing the birches up towards heaven, then being set back on the ground, both going and coming back would be good
Shakespeares Hamlet
Claudius cant pray my words fly, my thoughts remain below
Chapter 16 - Its All About Sex
Freuds The Interpretation of Dreams
tall buildings = male sexuality, rolling landscapes = female sexuality, etc.
Lots of movies (Grail legends, The Maltese Falcon, Notorious, North by Northwest)
lance and chalice (Holy Grail), curtains, waves on beach, train entering a tunnel
Beatties Janus
his keys in her bowl, her autonomy (the bowl) is purchased for her by a man
D.H Lawrences Lady Chatterlys Lover
sexiest scene is wrestling
D.H Lawrences The Rocking-Horse Winner
implicit sexual engagement with the boy in search of the luck his mother desires so terribly
Our Mutual Friend
two villains are plotting evil, Mr. Venus pegleg begins to rise from the floor until it is pointing straight out in front of him
Chapter 17: ... Except Sex
Fowles French Lieutenant Women
deed is done in 90 seconds, ridicule his poor hero, fallibility of desire, accentutate comic
Durells Alexandria Quartet
forces of politics and history, scenes that occur cover for espionage, sacrifice, desire for power
Burgesss A Clockwork Orange
rape, acts seem alien as well, Alex is more interested in cries of pain and outrage
purpose is to make Alex revolting
Nabokovs Lolita
Humbert is depraved, underage stepdaughter Lolita
Barnes Nightwood, Wise Children
really writing about liberation, religious/political/artistic subversion
Wise Children: Chances aim is self-expression or exertion of control, radical assertion of life force
Chapter 18 - If She Comes Up, Its Baptism
Guests Ordinary People
younger, weaker brother, survives, he was psychologically stronger, hes alive all over again, hes reborn
Erdrichs Love Medicine
mother walks across snow like water and dies, repeated thoughts of swimming and staying there, someone commits suicide
by running into flooded water
Morrisons Song of Solomon
you have to be ready to receive baptism
Morrisons Beloved
Paul D. escape from prison during flood of biblical proportions, Beloved emerges from water
to enter river and climb out is to emerge from kind of death into a new life
D.H. Lawrences The Horse Dealers Daughter
Mabel drowns, rescued, walks into nearby pond , coated with slimy, smelly fluid, as naked as she was born = new life
Murdochs The Unicorn
character drowns in a bog, then saved only to have vision fade; others also drown
OConners The River
little boy watched baptisms joining people to God, goes back to river the next day to commit suicide/join God
Hamilton A Map of the World
main character allows child to drown through negligence, deal with consequences
Updikes Rabbit,Run
drowns child while trying to bathe it
Chapter 19: Geography Matters
Hemingways The Old Man and the Sea - Caribbean, around Cuba, goes with history
Twains Huckleberry Finn - the Mississippi, Jim is running away in the possible direction when they reach Cairo and the Ohio
Burgess Napoleon Symphony - Russian winter defeating French emperor (Napoleon)
Poes The Fall of the House of Usher - opening pages describing bleak landscape, when he introduces us to Usher (really
creepy guy), reader already expects that
Kingsolvers Bean Trees - main character becomes adult, moves, changes names from Marietta to Taylor Greer, does new
things
Morrisons Song of Solomon - Milkman grows up without learning who he is until he travels back to family home country,
loses everything with world but finds himself
OBriens Going After Cacciato - Berlin admits Americans dont know land, Americans lose a soldier and burn village, real
target is village as a center of mystery, express rage
Forsters A Room with a View - Lucy travels to Florence, shed racially inherited stiffness, finds freedom, which comes from
Italian city
Forsters A Passage to India - focuses on mayhem from English misbehavior as India rulers and other confusion
Durrells The Alexandria Quartet - European characters went to Egypt, reveals entire culture of libertines and spies, everyone
has really weird characteristics, glass eyes, no one is faithful, there are 5 genders
D.H Lawrences Lady Chatterleys Lover - sent characters south for trouble, encounter dangerous political/philosophical
ideas, employ geography as a metaphor for psyche
Conrads Lord Jim - romantic dreams shattered during first experience in Indian Ocean, symbolically buried, rises after
redemption from love/belief, only to be killed again
Conrads Heart of Darkness - Marlow travels up Congo River, observes disintegration of European psyche
Heaneys Bogland - Northern Ireland has to get by without prairies, runs through history to unlock clues to political and
historical difficulties
Audens In Praise of Limestone - writing about places we call home (rolling ground of limestone country, groundwater,
subterranean caves, vistas), geography is conveyor of theme
Hemingways The Snows of Kilimanjaro - contrasts dead leopard with writer dying of gangrene down on the plain
(leopards is much cleaner)
D.H. Lawrences Women in Love - four main characters holiday in the Tyrol (inhuman place), two stay, two go, two who stay
fight, one dies eventually
Chapter 20: So Does Season
Sonnet 73 - seriously feelings his age, autumn, November, tree imagery
James Daisy Miller- names are Daisy Miller and Frederic Winterbourne, names give away
Audens In Memory of W.B. Yeats - emphasizes coldness of day Yeats died, mood in poem is also colder
Frosts After Apple Picking - informs us its autumn, day, mood, tone all indicate season, harvest is one element of autumn
Thomass Fern Hill - enchanted childhood summers, more than just school being out
Interlude
The Maltese Falcon - solving mystery of fat man and black bird
Hawkings Brief History of Time - telling us what home is like



Section 3 (21 - Envoi)
Chapter 21 - Marked for Greatness
Shakespeares Richard III - scoliosis (twisted back) marks Richards moral failure and distance from God.
Harry Potter - scar marks him as quester
Morrisons Beloved - Sethe has tree-shaped scar on her back from whipping, marks her awful past with slavery
Sophocles Oedipus Rex - Oedipus never questions why his feet have scars (his father feared Oedipus would kill his father and
marry his mother, so he left infant Oedipus to die and bound his feet), demonstrates Oedipus inability to know himself.
Hemingways The Sun Also Rises - Jake Barnes literally loses his manhood in war, represents a loss of reproductive and
creative potential for society as a whole. Thousands of young men died in the war, and this loss was felt by society in a similar
manner to how Jake Barnes felt the loss of his manhood.
Durrells Alexandria Quartet - every character has some sort of physical disability/injury, but none of them are particularly
hindered by it. This indicates that everyone has some flaw, but this doesnt prevent him of using his heart, mind, and soul to
accomplish his dreams.
Shelleys Frankenstein - the physical deformities of the monster represents the negative consequences that can arise when
man tries to play God.
Dorian Grey and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - everyone has character flaws no matter how civilized we think we are.
Chapter 22 - Hes Blind for a Reason, You Know
Oedipus Rex - King Oedipus physically blinds himself once he sees that his life is horribly corrupted. Tiresias, however, is
physically blind the whole time but is able to sense that Oedipus is corrupt from the beginning.
Joyces Araby - several references to the boy being blind. Not physical blindness, but the boy fails to recognize that the girl
is a regular person, not some elevated goddess.
Becketts Waiting for Godot - different because the blind character (Pozzo) shows up in the second act rather than the
beginning.
Greens Blindness - boy just starts to have a hopeful vision about his life when a rock breaks a window and physically blinds
him.
Chapter 23 - Its Never Just Heart Disease and Rarely Just Illness
Fords The Good Soldier - two couples visit a European Spa every year and engage in affairs, unknown to the naive
protagonist. They do this because of heart disease.
Homers Illiad and Odyssey - heart is described as being made of iron, the newest metal of Homers time.
Dexters Morse series - Morse, a detective, dies from a heart attack. This represents his life-long loneliness and failure with
women.
Hawthornes The Man of Adamant - man who detests everyone for being sinners moves into a cave by himself. Calcium
in the caves water turns his heart to stone. The man whose heart was stone in the beginning has his heart turn to literal stone
at the end.
Conrads Lord Jim - protagonist is shot to the heart and dies instantaneously after living a lonely life but being hopelessly
romantic.
Nabokovs Lolita - Humbert Humbert dies from a heart attack in jail after years of pedophilia. His physical heart problems
indicate moral heart problems.
Joyces The Sisters - paralysis of the priest indicates paralysis caused by the church to society and economy
Sophocles Oedipus Rex - plague represents divine wrath
Camus The Plague - the unstoppable nature of the plague shows that an individual man is powerless to affect fate.
James Daisy Miller - Daisy dies from bad air (aka malaria, thought to spread via air), but this really symbolizes the gossip
and bad public opinion that plagued her.
Ibsens A Dolls House - Dr. Ranks tuberculosis is inherited from his father, symbolizes his fathers poor drinking habits
Durrells Alexandria Quest - Darleys tuberculosis represents her prostitution and how men and society have used her up.
Cunninghams The Hours - a rewriting of Woolfs Mrs. Dalloway that replaces PTSD with AIDS in order to show the
political and social effects of this more modern disease.
Chapter 24 - Dont Read With Your Eyes
Joyces The Twelfth Night - seems like an ordinary meal, and yet the ladies spent an extravagant amount of money on it in
order to celebrate Epiphany (revealing of Christ to Wise Men) and preserve their middle class status
Baldwins Sonnys Blues - math teacher sends his alcoholic brother a scotch as a sign of brotherhood and understanding.
Some might say this is a bad idea, but we must ignore that modern perspective in order to understand the significance of
brotherhood.
Homers The Iliad - we cant sympathize with the extreme violence and sexuality of this play, so we must try to view it
through the lens of Johns great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
Shakespeares Merchant of Venice - anti-semitic by our standards, but not extreme compared to the times. Shylock has more
complex identity than Jew
Pounds The Cantos - very anti-semitic, but doesnt mean that it has no value.
Chapter 25 - Its My Symbol and Ill Cry If I Want To
Donnes The Flea - uses a conceit of the flea to request sex from his lover.
Donnes A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning - uses a more unconventional metaphor of two compasses spinning around to
represent two lovers who are physically distant yet spiritually connected. We dont have a lot of background knowledge for
this type of metaphor.
Keats A Vision - incorporates very private symbols such as gyres (imaginary spinning circular discs)
McCanns Let the Great World Spin - Twin Towers connected by tight rope for stunt, and this is a metaphor for how our lives
are connected by unlikely and flimsy filaments.