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Literary Devices
Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Chapter 14
Explanation and Analysis—Thoreau and Emerson:
When Ed Finnerty reappears at Paul’s office in Chapter 14, he schools his friend with an allusion. Paul’s unannounced—and unauthorized—guest informs him that he will pack his bags to live with Lasher. In doing so, he also offers some of the reverend’s teachings:
“You’re afraid to live, Paul. That’s what’s the matter with you. You know about Thoreau and Emerson?”
“A little. About as much as you did before Lasher primed you, I’ll bet.”
Finnerty’s reference to this storied pair of American thinkers draws upon their legacies for its persuasive force. Henry Thoreau and Ralph Emerson were among the foremost leaders of Transcendentalism, an 18th-century intellectual school of thought that emphasized individualism, originality, and self-reliance. As one of America’s major philosophical movements, Transcendentalism challenged institutions by celebrating nature and the human soul. Its thinkers likewise took their philosophy to the limits: Thoreau lived in a remote cabin by Walden Pond for more than two years and, as Finnerty explains, “wouldn’t pay a tax to support the Mexican War.” Thoreau and Emerson at once scandalized and stirred the country.
The thinkers could not be further removed from Paul’s world of mass industry and soulless machinery. The ironic comedy of the reference is that Player Piano’s America worships anything but individualism. Reduced to IQ scores and dissertation page-lengths, its citizens drift without purpose or meaning, experiencing the very life that Thoreau and Emerson had rejected. Sharing stories of the two thinkers, though, gives Finnerty a chance to rekindle their legacies.
Related Themes:
Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Tarzan:
Chapter 17 introduces the reader to Edgar Hagstrohm with an allusion. Just before the Shah sets foot into the American home, Player Piano acquaints its audience with this perfectly “average” man:
Edgar R. B. Hagstrohm, thirty-seven, R&R [...] had been named after his father’s favorite author, the creator of Tarzan—Tarzan, who, far away from the soot and biting winter of the Hagstrohms’ home town, Chicago, made friends with lions and elephants and apes, and swung through trees on vines, and was built like a brick outhouse with square wheels and Venetian blinds, and took what he wanted of civilization’s beautiful women in tree houses, and left the rest of civilization alone.
In gesturing at Tarzan’s original author, Player Piano also imports Hagstrohm's famed fictional creation into its post-war America. Tarzan—the feral child who grows up in the African wilderness—captured popular imagination after the novel’s release. Among the cultural interpretations that he has since amassed, Tarzan emblematizes the complex relationship between humans and nature.
The irony, though, is that the reference is terribly misplaced. Tarzan’s connotations of nature and environmentalism sit awkwardly within the novel’s thicket of mass-produced, self-optimized concrete. The character named after Tarzan’s creator lives—of all places—in an M-17 house. Tarzan does battle against predators with his bare hands while Hagstrohm slouches before a TV. Edgar Hagstrohm’s America of “simplified planning and production” has left no place for forests, animals, or people.
Related Themes:
Chapter 29
Explanation and Analysis—Ghost Dance:
Player Piano sifts through history when Paul makes his drugged first encounter with the Ghost Shirt Society. In Chapter 29, Ed Finnerty and Lasher give him context as they initiate him into their organization:
“What’s a ghost shirt?” murmured Paul between prickling lips…
“The Ghost Dance, Paul,” said Finnerty.
“The white man had broken promise after promise to the Indians, killed off most of the game, taken most of the Indians’ land, and handed the Indians bad beatings every time they’d offered any resistance,” said Lasher.
Named after the “Ghost Dance,” Lasher’s secretive group turns to the 19th-century Native American resistance for inspiration. Lasher and Finnerty allude to the spiritual movement that informed tribal struggles for sovereignty across the country. As Native American tribes faced increasing violence and mass displacement, the Ghost Dance offered its members a vision of earthly removal. Participants danced in circles, hoping that their songs might change the world. But the ritual alarmed settlers and the American government, who took to arms and committed tragic acts of violence. The Ghost Dance Wars culminated in the Wounded Knee Massacre, in which soldiers killed hundreds of civilians and effectively ended Native American resistance.
The Ghost Dance fills in Player Piano’s contours. As the bombs and burning die down in Ilium, Lasher reminds Paul that the Native American’s “magic” and “bullet-proof shirts” hardly deterred the US cavalry. The Native American’s defeat parallels that of Paul and Finnerty’s, who turn themselves in after exhausting the last of their resources and hopes. For its beaten leaders, the Ghost Shirt Society lives up to its historical predecessor as a desperate, last-ditch bid.
Related Themes:
