Powell AP Lit

Answer the following for your blog post: 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.    Opening "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" with a reference to Moby Dick, and similarly referring to The Iliad, Chabon incorporates ideas from outside works to demonstrate his understanding of literature as a whole and to exemplify the motif of storytelling. With a reference to The Iliad in chapter one, Chabon relates the heroic nature of Odysseus to Sam himself. Though not a connection to another work of literature in terms of content, this reference helps characterize Sam and give further insight to his view on life and himsel...

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?      Though the maids' songs are used as a humorous aspect of The Penelopiad 's telling, they show the lack of seriousness their deaths had in the original story. The maids finally have a chance to explain their own perspective towards their death and involvement with the suitors. In an ironic form, however, Atwood expresses this telling through song and poetic structure. Atwood stays true to the attention the maids were given in The Odyssey, but incorporates her own mission of telling the story through a feminist lens by actually allowing the maids to give their own take on the situation at hand. In doing so, a feminist lens is used through a character besides Penelope, who has her own biases towards Odysseus and his actions. Atwood includes the poetic and musical form to ironicall...

How does your novel represent justice? With The Odyssey being told primarily as an epic tale and used as a source of entertainment rather than character development or plot, the injustices toward Penelope and the twelve maids are ignored in favor of supporting Odysseus' journey of greatness. In my own opinion, the untold story of Penelope and the maids is a supporting detail that demonstrates Odysseus' tirade of power and adventure and does not purely exist to merely discredit the women of the story. Though the outdated ideas of the time period in which The Odyssey was written in are shown in the story through Odysseus' actions, The Penelopiad is a story of justice that takes a different stance on the importance of plot, social awareness, and culture when compared to its origin story. The alternative perspective that the work has given us thus far shows a different side to the adventure that is told in The Odyssey, giving the underrepresented characters, who were p...