The Moral Bucket List

An allusion is a reference in a literary work to another literary work or historical figure. Brooks alludes to five historical figures: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Frances Perkins, Dorothy Day, George Eliot, and Paul Tillich. These figures offer evidence for Brooks’s arguments in two ways. First, their lives exemplify the thesis of the essay, and, second, their writings provide citations that support Brooks’s claims. When he names Day as an example of “energizing love,” he both depicts the trajectory of her life from “disorganized” youth to committed social reformer and reproduces a quote from her biography in which she meditates on her deep love for her daughter. The passage supports Brooks’s claim that “energizing love” is one of the moral experiences necessary for achieving an inner light.

Much of Brooks’s argumentation unfolds through contrasts between external achievement and inner character. He introduces this contrast early in the essay when he juxtaposes his achievement of career success with his failure to achieve depth of character, and he expands on it when he distinguishes the resume and the