Analyze how a modern story alludes to the Odyssey and renders its patterns new

Learning goal: Analyze how a modern work of fiction alludes to themes, patterns of events and character types from myths, traditional stories and religious literary texts, and describe how the material is rendered new, citing the evidence that most strongly supports the analysis.

The source pattern. Homer's Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic, tells of Odysseus's return to his home island of Ithaca after the Trojan War. Several of its events form a pattern that later writers have reused. Odysseus is away for a very long time. He comes home in disguise, so that even those closest to him do not recognize him. His old dog, Argos, knows him at once through the disguise, though the dog is too weak to rise, and dies. In his absence, suitors have taken over his house and are competing for his wife, Penelope. A contest is set: whoever can string Odysseus's great bow and shoot an arrow through a row of axe heads will win; none of the suitors can string it, and Odysseus, still disguised, does. His old nurse recognizes him by a scar on his leg; he has already revealed himself to his son, and he reveals himself to two loyal servants while the suitors are trying the bow, before his own turn, so the disguise is dropped in stages, not all at once. Earlier, when the Cyclops asked his name, he answered "Nobody," a trick that saved his life. The homecoming ends with Odysseus killing the suitors and reclaiming his household. Those are the themes (the long return, recognition, home changed in one's absence), the patterns of events (disguise, the faithful dog, the contest the usurpers cannot win, recognition by a scar) and the character types (the returning wanderer, the suitors, the loyal companion) that a modern story can allude to.

Original story — Nobody's Dog

Odell Marsh got off the bus at the same stop he had left from three years earlier, when his mother's job had moved the family two states away. Now the job had moved back, and so had they. He was taller. His hair was different. Nobody at the stop looked twice.

He walked to the park because that was where he had always walked. The court was still there, with the hoop he and Jun had bolted to the pole the summer before he left. Six boys were playing on it, boys he did not know, shouting the way he and Jun used to shout. One of them missed a layup and blamed the rim, which had sagged so that the ball rolled off the left side every time.

An old dog lay by the fence, gray around the muzzle and mostly blind. Odell knew him before the dog knew Odell. Then the tail began to thump the dirt, slowly and then not slowly, and the dog dragged himself up and pressed his face into Odell's knee.

"That's Jun's dog," one of the boys said. "He doesn't like anybody."

"He likes me," Odell said.

"Who are you?"

"Nobody you'd know."

Jun came around the corner with a bag of ice for the cooler and did not stop walking when he passed Odell. He said, "Hey," the way you say it to a stranger, and went to fix the rim. He could not fix it. Neither could the tallest boy, who hung on it, or the boy with the wrench, who tightened the wrong bolt until it stripped.

Odell watched the way you watch a contest you are not entered in. Then he said, "The left bolt has to come out a quarter turn first. It's cross-threaded. It always was."

Nobody moved. It was Jun who finally handed him the wrench. Odell backed the bolt out, lifted the rim level with his shoulder, and set the bolt again. The ball went in. It went in again.

Jun was looking at the underside of Odell's chin, at the white scar shaped like a fishhook. They had gotten that scar together, the day the hoop went up, when the pole had swung and caught him.

"Odell," Jun said. It was not a question.

The boys looked from one to the other, waiting for something to happen: a fight, maybe, or an apology, or a speech. Nothing happened. The dog lay back down. Jun tossed him the ball. "You're on their team," he said. "They're down four."

Odell had imagined this day for three years, and in none of his imaginings did he end up on the other side of the court. He caught the ball anyway. The rim was level. That was one thing.

Finding the allusions. An allusion is a reference the writer expects the reader to recognize. This story never names the Odyssey, but the pattern is unmistakable once you know the source. Odell (the name echoes Odysseus) returns after a long absence and is not recognized. The old dog knows him first. Boys who did not build the hoop now occupy it, as the suitors occupied the house. A task the boys on the court cannot do, leveling the rim, is the bow contest. Jun recognizes him by a scar. When asked his name, Odell says "Nobody you'd know," a direct echo of Odysseus's answer to the Cyclops. The strongest evidence for the allusion is not any single item but the cluster; one faithful dog could be coincidence, but a dog, a scar, a contest and the word "Nobody" together are a deliberate pattern. In your analysis, cite the cluster and say so.

How the material is rendered new. Alluding to a source is not the same as copying it, and the standard asks you to describe how the modern work renders the old material new. Compare, point by point, what the source does and what the story changes. The absence is three years and a job transfer, not twenty years and a war; the scale is made ordinary, which is part of the point. The suitors are not enemies; they are "boys he did not know," with no wrong done to him, and the story explicitly refuses the expected outcome: the others wait for "a fight, maybe, or an apology, or a speech," and "Nothing happened." The contest is won, but winning it does not restore ownership; Jun puts Odell "on their team," on the other side of the court. The dog does not die. The recognition happens, but it produces a game, not a reckoning. The theme is turned as well. The Odyssey asks whether the wanderer can reclaim his home; this story asks whether a place can be returned to at all, and its final lines answer cautiously: "The rim was level. That was one thing." The material is made new by shrinking its scale, removing its violence and replacing restoration with something more modest, a share in what continues without you.

Why writers do this. Alluding to a traditional pattern gives a short story a large frame. A reader who recognizes the Odyssey brings the epic's weight to a boy at a bus stop, so the boy's small disappointment carries a longer history of homecomings. At the same time, the story's departures from the pattern make an argument: modern returns are not triumphant, and the honest ending is a shared court rather than a reclaimed throne. An analysis should do both jobs, identify the allusions with the strongest evidence and explain what the changes mean.

The misconception. Students sometimes stop at matching: "the dog is Argos, the scar is the scar." Matching is the first step. The analysis is in the differences and in what they say about the modern situation. If your paragraph could be written by someone who had only a list of parallels, it is not yet an analysis.

Worked allusion identification: Element: "Nobody you'd know." Source: Odysseus tells the Cyclops Polyphemus his name is "Nobody." Strongest evidence that this is an allusion rather than a casual phrase: it answers a direct "Who are you?", exactly the question the Cyclops asks, and it appears alongside the dog, the scar and the contest. Function: it marks Odell as the disguised returner and, unlike the epic, it is also literally true here; to these boys he is nobody, which is the story's first sign that the return will not be a reclaiming.

Worked rendering-new analysis: Pattern: the contest the usurpers cannot win. Source: stringing the bow, which none of the suitors could manage, shows the suitors who he is and begins their slaughter. Story: leveling the rim proves Odell's identity and leads to Jun saying "You're on their team." The change is the consequence. Winning the contest in the epic restores possession; winning it in the story earns a place in a game that has moved on without him. The evidence that this is deliberate: the sentence "in none of his imaginings did he end up on the other side of the court," which names the expectation and denies it.

Worked theme comparison: Source theme: home is worth every hardship and can be reclaimed by the one who truly belongs. Story theme: a place changes while you are gone, and returning means joining what it has become. Evidence: the boys are described as shouting "the way he and Jun used to shout," so the practice continues with new people; the rim is level, and the story allows only "That was one thing," a deliberately limited satisfaction. The allusion lets the story measure a modest modern homecoming against the grandest one in literature, and the measurement is the meaning.

Parallel chart: Make a two-column chart: Odyssey pattern on the left, Nobody's Dog on the right. Fill at least six rows (absence, disguise, dog, occupiers, contest, scar, name, ending). In a third column write what the story changed and one sentence on what the change means.

Independent performance: Write a three-paragraph analysis. Paragraph one identifies the allusions to the Odyssey, citing the cluster of evidence that most strongly shows the pattern is deliberate. Paragraph two describes how the material is rendered new, comparing at least three patterns of events or character types with their source and explaining the meaning of each change. Paragraph three states the story's theme and how it revises the epic's theme. Success criteria: the source is named and its events described accurately; every parallel is paired with a difference; the strongest evidence is identified as such; the essay explains meaning rather than only listing matches.

Extension: Choose another traditional story or myth you know well and write one paragraph proposing how a modern story could allude to its pattern and render it new, naming the pattern, the modern setting and the change that would carry meaning.