Jamie Smith Assignment 1

One allusion made in the poem “Inventing my Parents” is to Fitzgerald and the American Dream. The author is referencing famous writing about the American Dream, which in this writing is portrayed as glamorous and exciting, even though in Fitzgerald’s most famous work, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby fails to obtain his goal and ultimately dies. 

This theme is carried over into the poem. The poem frequently talks about happiness, using phrases like “the air outside is warm as a bath,” “the bright cafe,” and “light as summer rain.” These phrases are positive and warm, with connotations of happiness. Similarly, in The Great Gatsby, the American dream seems glamorous, however eventually does not work out for Gatsby. 

This shows a sort of underlying falsity about how great the American dream really is, in a way tainting the happiness of the rest of the book. In the poem, there is the underlying suggestion of war and hard times, seen in “its shadow sweeping every town.” This parallels Gatsby in that both are at their base happy, but have some sort of underlying sadness or tension. 

So, the reference to Fitzgerald enhances the poem to let the audience make that connection and fully understand the optimism in the face of war that this poem is conveying.