Next To Normal - Literary References and Allusions

Literary References and Allusions

• During Act I, Gabe reads a paperback copy of The Catcher in the Rye. Kyle Dean Massey said, "I read about a page a night." Salinger's novel about grieving a loss is read by the character who is the loss. In Catcher, Holden struggles with the loss of a brother, Allie, who died of leukemia.
• When sorting through a box of items from her son's room, Diana picks up a music box from the box to reveal a copy of Goodnight Moon underneath.
• Natalie carries a hardcover copy of Flowers for Algernon, which she is studying in school. Both the novel and "Next to Normal" deal with psychological experimentation.
• Diana alludes to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Sylvia Plath, and Frances Farmer in the song "Didn't I See This Movie?".
• Diana also reads from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a play by Edward Albee which deals with marital stress caused by similar issues of "Next to Normal". On her YouTube site, Alice Ripley said that she uses Albee's play as a bible, drawing inspiration for Diana.