Topical Guide 484
Mark Dorset
Anonymity, Being “No One”: Advantages of
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 4:
There was the added comfort of feeling anonymous: even though they ate there so often, no one connected with the place ever gave any sign of recognizing them. How pleasant it is to be no one now and then.
Homer, The Odyssey (translated by A. T. Murray):
So he spoke, and again I handed him the flaming wine. Thrice I brought and gave it him, and thrice he drained it in his folly. But when the wine had stolen about the wits of the Cyclops, then I spoke to him with gentle words: “Cyclops, thou askest me of my glorious name, and I will tell it thee; and do thou give me a stranger’s gift, even as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, Noman do they call me—my mother and my father, and all my comrades as well.”
So I spoke, and he straightway answered me with pitiless heart: “Noman will I eat last among his comrades, and the others before him; this shall be thy gift.”
He spoke, and reeling fell upon his back, and lay there with his thick neck bent aslant, and sleep, that conquers all, laid hold on him. […] Then verily I drew nigh, bringing the stake from the fire, and my comrades stood round me and a god breathed into us great courage. They took the stake of olive-wood, sharp at the point, and thrust it into his eye, while I, throwing my weight upon it from above, whirled it round, as when a man bores a ship’s timber. […] Terribly then did he cry aloud, and […] he called aloud to the Cyclopes, […] and they heard his cry and came thronging from every side, and standing around the cave asked him what ailed him: “What so sore distress is thine, Polyphemus, that thou criest out thus through the immortal night, and makest us sleepless? Can it be that some mortal man is driving off thy flocks against thy will, or slaying thee thyself by guile or by might?”
Then from out the cave the mighty Polyphemus answered them: “My friends, it is Noman that is slaying me by guile and not by force.”
Emily Dickinson:
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don't tell! they’d advertise — you know!
How dreary — to be — Somebody!
How public — like a Frog —
To tell one’s name — the livelong June —
To an admiring Bog!
Franz Kafka, “Excursion into the Mountains,” translated by Willa and Edwin Muir:
“I don’t know,” I cried without being heard, “I do not know, If nobody comes, then nobody comes. I’ve done nobody any harm, nobody’s done me any harm, but nobody will help me. A pack of nobodies. Yet that isn’t all true. Only, that nobody helps me—a pack of nobodies would be rather fine, on the other hand. I’d love to go on an excursion—why not?—with a pack of nobodies. Into the mountains, of course, where else? How these nobodies jostle each other, all these lifted arms linked together, these numberless feet treading so close! Of course they are all in dress suits. We go so gaily, the wind blows through us and the gaps in our company. Our throats swell and are free in the mountains! It’s a wonder that we don’t burst into song.”
Advertising: Appeal to Desire to Enhance One’s Self-Image
Fashion, Its Inconstant Nature
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 4
He put some mousse on his hair and combed it straight back, in a style he picked up from advertisements for Italian suits.
See also:
Advertising: Types of Appeal TG 373; “The Grass Is Greener,” Exoticism TG 441, TG 442; Appeal to Desire to Enhance One’s Self-Image, Appeal to Sensual Pleasure TG 476
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