Mellin AP Lit

Compare this novel to those you've read previously. What appears here that appears in others? For example, Chabon was asked if he purposefully referenced the opening of  Moby Dick  when two unlikely bedmates are forced together to share a bed unwillingly with the opening of  Kavalier and Clay . Make connections in the first 12 chapters to other works of literature in a similar way. In this blog post, I will compare "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" to "The Posisonwood Bible," "Ceremony," and "There There" in terms of content and literary style.  Firstly, Chabon's novel is similar to "The Poisonwood Bible" because it references history periodically so as to both ground the reader in the story and add depth to the characters' narratives. In K+C, WWII and the Holocaust, although not the main story, are extremely significant to the time and greatly affect the manner in which the characters behave. For example, if...

1.   What do the various poetic and musical forms Margaret Atwood uses to tell the maids’ story bring to the telling? Why do you think she chose to write  The Penelopiad   in this way? In The Penelopiad , Margaret Atwood chooses to use various poetic and musical forms to tell the maids' story. This allows the maids to tell their side of the story while keeping The Penelopiad  realistic in the sense that the maids were a voiceless group with no power or say whatsoever. The maids, being daughters of the poor and the slaves, would have been unable to voice their opinion so, in order to show this divide from the other characters while still having their perspective shine through, Atwood has them sing and perform poetry. In addition, although not the primary reason, using song can make for an easy interpretation of tone. For example, in the first Chorus Line (Chapter II), the maids perform the Rope-Jumping Rhyme. It is quite simple to understand their feelings because ...

What do you think might have inspired the author to write this particular story? Atwood's The Penelopiad was directly influenced by the Homeric epic, The Odyssey. Atwood's story attempts to tell the original from a different point of view. What influenced Atwood to write from the perspective of Penelope? This is uncertain, but it is likely that she connected with the character in terms of feeling overshadowed or underrepresented due to physical features. The first seven chapters of The Penelopiad seem to be a sort of social commentary on both female rights as well as the unfairness of arranged marriage. These issues were also likely to have played a part in influencing Margaret Atwood to write this story. Lastly, due to Penelope's state of being (in the afterlife), one of Atwood's influences in writing the story could have been an interest or perhaps even an uncertainty in the afterlife.