Shakespeare References in The Dominant Blonde

Yes, it seems there are Shakespeare references in basically every book I read, no matter the subject, no matter the style (which, of course, leads me to believe there are Shakespeare references in basically every book I haven’t yet read as well, and so everyone who reads is coming across Shakespeare references, whether he or she knows it or not). Alisa Kwitney’s novel The Dominant Blonde contains a few Shakespeare references. Kwitney writes: “The ring on her finger glittered beneath the waves. A sea change. He doth suffer a sea change. What Shakespeare had really described was someone getting his face nibbled off by fish” (p. 64). The passage Kwitney is referring to is from Act I scene ii of The Tempest. Toward the end of that scene, Ariel sings “Full fathom five thy father lies./Of his bones are coral made./Those are pearls that were his eyes./Nothing of him that doth fade,/But doth suffer a sea-change/Into something rich and strange.” The next reference is to Hamlet. One of the characters is describing an incident from his childhood in which he shot his own father. He says, “The right to bear arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them” (p. 184). That of course is a play on a line from that most famous of soliloquies: “Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/And by opposing end them?” That is immediately followed by a reference to Shakespeare himself, with another character responding to him, “I think you’ve got your Bill of Rights mixed up with your Shakespeare” (p. 184).

The Dominant Blonde was published in 2002. The copy I read, though a paperback, is a First Edition.