In Popular Culture
Frank Zappa, in the liner notes of the Mothers of Invention album We're Only in It for the Money, recommends reading the short story before listening to the track "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny."
Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division was inspired by "In the Penal Colony" to write the song "Colony" from the album Closer.
The execution device is similar to the Blood Quill utilized by Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter series. The magical quill, however, writes with the blood of the user as ink, and what is written is carved onto the user's hand; scars are left with continuous use. It is considered a brutal device of torture.
Read more about this topic: In The Penal Colony
Famous quotes containing the words popular and/or culture:
“I do not see why, since America and her autumn woods have been discovered, our leaves should not compete with the precious stones in giving names to colors; and, indeed, I believe that in course of time the names of some of our trees and shrubs, as well as flowers, will get into our popular chromatic nomenclature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Any historian of the literature of the modern age will take virtually for granted the adversary intention, the actually subversive intention, that characterizes modern writing—he will perceive its clear purpose of detaching the reader from the habits of thought and feeling that the larger culture imposes, of giving him a ground and a vantage point from which to judge and condemn, and perhaps revise, the culture that produces him.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)