Allusions To History
- In the first chapter of Part II, Emil and Marie mention John Huss.
- In the first chapter of Part II, Emil's letters are said to mention Porfirio Díaz.
- In the second chapter of Part II, Lou mentions William Jennings Bryan.
- The romance between Emil and Marie and their death alludes to the similarly tragic lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, from Ovid's book Metamorphoses. Clear evidence of this occurs on page 173 where "the white mulberries...were covered with a dark stain", directly corresponding to Ovid: nam color in pomo est.("The hand she held was covered with dark stains, where she had kissed it. But the stained slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only half the story. Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from Frank's alfalfa-field were flutterin in and out among the interlacing shadows...)
Read more about this topic: O Pioneers!
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)