Allusions in Brown by Richard
Rodriguez
1. page 127 – negro civil rights
2. page 132 – the New World =
alludes to how Columbus
“discovered” the Americas
(everything in the Western
Hemisphere was the New
World)
3. 133 - Maggie and Jigs =
comic strip about kids trying to
wake up their father (Hispanic),
show how ideas of Hispanics
has changed over time
4. page 139 – Fra Angelic’s
Transfiguration, a Dominican
friar, wants the reader to see
white clouds obscuring, White
= purity, nothing
5. Ricky Martin, page 142 – the
“definitive blonde” became
Americanized, dying hair, fit in
6. Noel Ignatiev – book that
explains how the Irish, because
of skin color, lost identity and
became White
7. 136 – Dorothy Dandridge –
first African-American woman
to receive an Academy Award,
quickly lost her fame, very
light-skinned
8. 127 – the sin of slavery,
Biblical allusion
9. Hera’s eyes – Greek goddess
one of the sisters of Zeus’s
wife, alludes to her because she
was a very jealous woman,
comparing Americans to her
10. Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn – White kid from
Mississippi runs away with his
friend who is a runaway slave
11. 132 – las castas – paintings
from Mexico in 1785, show a
mother and a father of different
races and the offspring they
produce, racial classification
12. Sally Hemmings – 134,
slave owned by Thomas
Jefferson, had sex with her,
shows that White man with
Black woman = negative
connotations [O], Black man
with a White woman = Black
man is raping the White
woman
13. Showboat – 134 – covers
dramatic era in US history,
reconstruction to roaring
twenties, family survival and
great musical score, also
integrated
14. Elvis Presley – 141 – White
performer singing Black music,
wanted equal rights and
integration (Eminem of his
day!), racial criticisms
15. la negra – 133 – painting of
an African-American woman
16. 137 – Fragonard – French
painter who scenes of frivolity
and gallantry are among the
most complete embodiments of
the rococo spirit, spooky and
up-beat, dark forests =
compares to blackbird
17. Moby Dick – 134 – famous
book about white whale,
Captain Ahab, Queequeg
18. book of American language
– H.L. Mencken – defining
British from American English
19. Jane Austen – English
novelist, wrote about love and
upper class society (Pride and
Prejudice, Sense and
Sensibility)
20. the glamour of Mexico,
novellas with light-skinned
actors, black-skinned actors are
poorer or servants
21. 143 – tomorrow and
tomorrow and tomorrow –
Macbeth – losing identity
22. one-blood theory – if a
person has one drop of AfricanAmerican blood, you are
Black!
Exit Slip: Re-read the last
sentence on page 143. Do you
think this is possible, or should it
even happen?
Homework on Wiki, quiz on
allusions on Monday!