Lethe alpha literally means "un-forgetfulness" or "un-concealment". Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, was one of the five rivers of the Greek underworld, the other four being Styx, Acheron (the river of sorrow), Cocytus (the river of lamentation) and Phlegethon (the river of fire). According to Statius, it bordered Elysium, the final resting place of the virtuous. Ovid wrote that the river flowed through the cave of Hypnos, god of sleep, where its murmuring would induce drowsiness. The shades of the dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life. In the "Aeneid", Virgil
The Arm of the Starfish evokes the historical Macrina's scar, which her brother Gregory writes about in his "Life of Macrina". Classical names used in the book include Polyhymnia, the fictional Portuguese island of Gaea, named for a Greek goddess associated with the Earth, and Typhon, the deadliest monster in Greek mythology and the legendary "Father of Monsters." Finally, the names of Kali Cutter and Joshua Archer are significant. Kali is the name of the Hindu goddess of change, power and destruction, while the girl's surname indicates that she and her father have the power to cut (i.e., wound) others, both figuratively and literally. Joshua,