Summary
Chapter 1. Every Trip Is a Quest (Except When Itâs Not)
Through the broad outline of an imagined story involving a young manâs trip to a grocery store, the meaning and applicability of the quest narrative (including a knight, a dangerous road, a dragon, an evil knight, and a princess) is presented. Such a traditional narrative is present in works as varied as Thomas Pynchonâs The Crying of Lot 49, Edmund Spenserâs The Faerie Queene, and Mark Twainâs Huckleberry Finn. Although a quest narrative can be interpreted in any number of ways, the central meaning of such a story is always the same: The heroâs journey is undertaken to obtain self-knowledge.
Chapter 2. Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion
When characters in a drama or story eat together, such as in Henry Fieldingâs Tom Jones or Raymond Carverâs story âCathedral,â itâs not simply an arbitrary event like the same people attending a party or a baseball game. The act of sharing a meal is meant to demonstrate their basic connection with one another. In many texts, when characters eat a meal together, it is highly symbolic, representing religious âcommunionâ among people, whether for good or bad.
Chapter 3. Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires
The vampire, such as the one in Bram Stokerâs Dracula, is historically an untrustworthy fellow who is dangerous, alluring, attractive, and out to get something from the main character. In most cases, the vampire seeks to nourish himself on the youth or innocence of another. However, this idea does not always take the form of an actual vampire. In Robert Louis Stevensonâs The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Henry Jamesâs âDaisy Miller,â and Thomas Hardyâs Tess of the DâUrbervilles, the specter of power and exploitation of the innocent can be seen in wholly humanâalbeit, vampire-likeâcharacters.
When a reader comes across actual vampires, ghosts, and various otherworldly figures in literature, he or she should take a moment to think about what human forces they might representâevil, power, death, loss of virility, seduction, selfishness, abuse, or some other harsh aspect of natural life.
Chapter 4. Now, Where Have I Seen Her Before?
All works of literature are based on the concepts and books that came before them. There is no such thing as a work of dramatic art that does not have its roots in the ideas, symbols, and stories of other writers. True âoriginality,â in this sense, does not exist in literature.
In the novel Going After Cacciato, author Tim OâBrien tells a wonderfully original story about the journey of a squad of soldiers amidst the violence and alienation of wartime Vietnam in a way that would, at first glance, seem perfectly unlike any other story ever told. To the informed reader, however, the very reason OâBrienâs novel appears so unique is because of the variety of literary allusions and references contained therein. These range from Alice in Wonderland to Sacajawea, and from Hemingway to âHansel and Gretel,â and a clear understanding of OâBrienâs novel depends upon the reader realizing this. Other books that demonstrate this âintertextualityââthe dialogue between various worksâinclude T. C. Boyleâs story âThe Overcoat IIâ (a reference to Nikolai Gogolâs âThe Overcoatâ) and William Trevorâs âTwo More Gallantsâ (a reference to James Joyceâs âTwo Gallantsâ).
Chapter 5. When in Doubt, Itâs from Shakespeare âŚ
Works based partially or completely on the plays of William Shakespeare are various and wide-ranging, including Moonlighting; Death Valley Days; Kiss Me, Kate; West Side Story; Woody Allenâs A Midsummer Nightâs Sex Comedy; Faulknerâs The Sound and the Fury; Huxleyâs Brave New World; and countless other novels, plays, poems, and films. In a great deal of English fiction written between the eighteenth and twenty-first centuries, Shakespeareâs stories and characters, particularly those of Hamlet and Macbeth, are retold or reimagined in new ways.
Chapter 6. ⌠Or the Bible
Works that demonstrate direct or indirect allusions to the Bible include Toni Morrisonâs Beloved, Clint Eastwoodâs Pale Rider, the fiction of James Joyce, much of William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, John Milton, and James Baldwin, Steinbeckâs East of Eden, Beowulf, The Faerie Queene, and Shakespeare himself, among many, many others.
Familiarity with the stories of the Old and New Testaments is second nature to some readers in America, but a deeper intimacy with the Bible can only improve oneâs comprehension and apprecia...
