McKenna Elliott Assignment 1

In the poem "Inventing My Parents" by Susan Ludvigson, allusions are made to major authors such as Sinclair Lewis, Kay Boyle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and John Donne. These authors were alluded to because they were all writers who had common themes of politics and the American Dream, which is also a theme in this poem. The American Dream is alluring and materialistic, but the time period that the poem is set in was a harsh, challenging time for the world due to World War II, so the allusion to the American Dream creates a contrast throughout the poem. It contrasts the excitement with what's really going on at the time, as Ludvigson says "she imagines it a hawk flying over, its shadow sweeping every town." This also shows how the American Dream isn't really all it's talked up to be.

Ludvigson creates a fairly light mood through phrases like "my mother's face is lit by ideas", "fragrant night", and "she's laughing, light as summer rain when it begins" so as to show how people were acting like everything was okay, despite how wrong everything was due to the war. This reinforces the falsehood of the American Dream.