Para 1: Olds compares her son to Houdini's escape strategies to characterize her son's physical maturation.
"Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider,/ the way Houdini would expand his body/while people were putting him in chains" (1-3)
-Olds takes the visual image of Houdini puffing out his shoulders and chest and applies it to her son's growth. The visual image evoked by the allusion helps the reader to better understand the mother's view of her child; how the mother sees her boy turning into a man and growing up.
Para 2: Olds again uses allusion to describe her son growing older. She compares her son's separation from her with one of Houdini's famous escapes.
"Now he looks at me/ the way Houdini studied a box/ to learn the way out, then smiled and let himself be manacled" (14-16)
-In alluding to, and ultimately comparing her son's growth to, Houdini's escape, Olds capture the thoughts of her son. Olds is able to describe his need for separation from his mother and for independence. The allusion to Houdini describes the son's mental and emotional changes.
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