When authors refer to other great works, people, and events, it’s usually not accidental. Put on your super-sleuth hat and figure out why.
Literary and Philosophical References
- Charles Dickens (1.2.9)
- Wallace Stevens (1.3.60, 1.4.115)
- Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee" (1.3.62-64)
- Freud (1.3.101)
- Darwin (1.3.101)
- Nietzsche (1.3.101)
- Erikson (1.3.101)
- Dante (1.3.102)
- Homer (1.3.102)
- Cervantes (1.3.102)
- Calderón de la Barca (1.3.102)
- Josephine Bonaparte (1.4.82)
- Robert Frost (1.4.115)
- Rilke (1.4.115, 1.5.40)
- Rumi (1.4.115)
- Don Quijote (1.4.118)
- "But men die daily from lack of what is found there" is a quote from the poet William Carlos Williams (1.4.123)
- Carlos Castaneda (1.5.40)
- Robert Bly (1.5.40)
- Our Bodies, Our Selves (2.1.13)
- Simone de Beauvoir (2.1.70)
- Mary Wollstonecraft (2.1.83)
- Susan B. Anthony (2.1.83)
- Virginia Woolf (2.1.83)
- Sword of Damocles (2.1.133)
- Walt Whitman (2.2.39)
- Proust (3.1.91)
- Scheherazade, the narrator of One Thousand and One Nights (3.2.20)
- Kashtanka, the name of the title character in a short story by Anton Chekov. She's a dog. (3.5.27)
Historical References
- Juan Pablo Duarte, Francisco del Rosario Sánchez, and Matías Ramón Mella were the three most important leaders of the Dominican War of Independence, which gave the Dominican Republic independence from Haiti in 1844. (1.1.69)
- Charles the Fifth (1.2.9)
- Prince Charles (1.2.9)
- Charlemagne (1.2.9)
- "The dictator" refers to Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961. (2.1.122, 2.2.55, 3.1.30)
- Che Guevara (2.1.129)
- Bellevue Hospital (2.2.5)
- Thomas Edison (2.2.18)
- Benjamin Franklin (2.2.18)
- The SIM were the "Military Intelligence Service," the Dominican secret police under Rafael Truijillo. (2.2.29, 3.1.53, 3.2.4)
- Lincoln, Gettysburg (2.2.36)
- Goya (2.2.55)
- "What was happening in Cuba" is a reference to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. (2.4.2)
- "The massacre" refers to The Parsley Massacre of 1937, in which Trujillo ordered Dominican soldiers to kill nearly 40,000 Haitians. (3.1.87)
- The Prado (3.3.2)
- Gauguin (3.3.2)
- Van Gogh (3.3.2)
- Grünewald (3.3.2)
Pop Culture References
- Superman (1.4.7)
- "Mary Had a Little Lamb" (1.4.115)
- "Baa Baa, Black Sheep" (1.4.115)
- The Beatles (1.5.22)
- Bob Dylan (1.5.22)
- The Mamas and the Papas (1.5.22)
- New York Times (2.2.13)
- "Miami Vice" (3.1.86)
- Rin Tin Tin (3.2.4)
- Beethoven (3.5.3)
- "Hans at the dike" is a legend that comes from the novel Hans Brinker, by Mary Mapes Dodge. (3.5.10)
- F.A.O. Schwarz (3.5.14)