Chapter 15: Allusions

Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been”

1.  Return to your text and read the last question that follows the story. Now, return to the story and find the first moment when it becomes clear that Arnold Friend’s character is an allusion to Charles Schmid. What other details provide clues to this allusion?

2.  The story opens with a dedication to Bob Dylan. What does this tell us about the story?

3.  How does the third person limited omniscient point of view shape this story and Oates’s allusion to historical events?

William Faulkner, “A Rose for Emily”

1.  Why might Faulkner have chosen to name Emily’s love interest Homer Barron?

2.  In what way is the South another character in this story?

3.  Consider the title of the story. What is its significance?

Percy Bysshe Shelley, “Ozymandias,” and Sharon McCartney, “After the Chuck Jones Tribute on Teletoon,” William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium”

Each of these poems makes allusions to imaginary worlds and/or exotic places. How do these allusions to far-off lands contribute to the poem’s meanings?

John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn,” John Keats [When I have fears that I may cease to be], John Keats, “On first Looking into Chapman’s Homer”

Consider Keats’s use of allusion in these three poems.

Robert Duncan, “Persephone,” Sylvia Plath, “Two Sisters of Persephone”

Compare and contrast the ways in which each poet alludes to the myth of Persephone.

Amy Clampitt, “The Dakota,” Alfred Lord Tennyson, “The Lady of Shalott”

Explore how each poet uses allusions to communicate ideas about grief and mourning.

Czeslaw Milosz, “Orpheus and Eurydice,” Rainer Maria Rilke, “Orpheus, Euridyce, Hermes,” Jorie Graham, “Orpheus and Eurydice,” H.D. “Eurydice,” Adrienne Rich, “I Dream I’m the Death of Orpheus,” and Robert Pinsky, “Keyboard”

Compare and contrast how each poet alludes to the myth of Orpheus.

Mary Zimmerman, “Metamorphoses”

1.  What is the myth of King Midas? Why is he included in this play?

2.  Why do you think the playwright chose to put Phaeton in therapy? There are two allusions operating in this scene. What are they?

3.  What is the significance of one of the last lines, “Let me die the moment my love dies.”