9.10 Source Material and Allusions Worksheet

A political cartoon shows a leader holding a shiny apple in one hand and a contract in the other. A crowd reaches for the apple while a small figure points at the contract’s fine print. Above the scene, the caption reads: ‘Knowledge is the price of appetite.’ In the corner, a tiny Trojan horse is stamped like a watermark.

In a monologue, a character says, ‘I have been loyal like a dog, and still they call me mutt.’ She then compares herself to a servant on an island who sings for a master, and to a woman who follows a mother-in-law into poverty. Finally she says, ‘If love is only obedience, then love is only a chain.’ The stage direction notes that she lifts her chin on the word ‘choice.’

The novel’s narrator compares a school’s dress code to ‘armor’ and then to ‘a fig leaf stitched by committee.’ Students are told the code is for ‘their own protection,’ but the narrator notes it mostly protects adults from discomfort. In a later scene, the principal calls one student ‘a distraction,’ and the narrator writes, ‘They named her temptation so they wouldn’t have to name their gaze.’