Characters in the comic book, Calliope, are identified with each

other to enhance the ideas and feelings that Neil Gaiman wants the
readers to notice. For instance, Erasmus Fry who captured the
youngest muse of Greek Mythology suffered from not having an
inspiration to create his novels, poems, plays, etc. as well Richard
Madoc experiences the same distress. At first, Fry imprisoned
Calliope for sixty years and raped her continually to steal her
inspiration instead of pursuing her. When he gets the fame and the
glory he craves, Fry sells Calliope to Richard Madoc in exchange for a
bezoar which is believed to own mystic powers and then asks Madoc’s
help to bring one of his books back into print. It could be possible
that either Erasmus is aware of mystical trouble that would show up
as he imprisoned Calliope, or he wants to use bezoar to remedy his
sicknesses to try his luck for immortality as he gets too old. When
Richard Madoc becomes Calliope’s new master, he keeps building his
selfish ambition of fame onto the inspiration he steals from Homer’s
muse and then he gets famous, too. Later, Madoc learns that Fry
commits suicide by poisoned himself and the last thing he did was
begging his publisher to bring his book back into print again. The
ironic part of the tale is when Erasmus Fry commits suicide although
he has bezoars. Either he did not have a chance to use it because he
loses his mind so quickly or he did not prefer to use bezoar. After
the unexpected loss of Erasmus, Richard begins to feel something
goes wrong. The illustrators are very good at the subject to subject
transitions and which facial expression of characters would depict
the mood of the characters and the ambiance of the moment as
Madoc closes his face with his hand like things take a turn for the
worse by forgetting to do a favor to Fry. Afterward, he starts to
identify himself with Erasmus and feel frightened.
As Calliope cannot resist his imprisonment and abuse anymore,
she prays Gracious Ladies to help. They say that only Dream
(Oneiros) is able to save Calliope from her captivity, yet he is
imprisoned too. At the beginning, she refuses it because they hate
each other. Then, although she knows Oneiros cannot save her, she
awaits him to come. As noted previously, characters in the comic
book can identify themselves with another. They experience the
same situations: problems they face, fame and imprisonment as
Oneiros tells Madoc that “I know how she must feel”. As it is
understood from these dualities, dream and inspiration connected to
each other. They had a son, for example, as a strong argument for
their connection. When words come to Madoc, he is punished with a
nonending stream of ideas by Oneiros. He goes crazy as the closures
of the comics sharpened and when both Calliope and Dream leave
Madoc, there is only left Madoc’s empty mind and Erasmus Fry’s book
which he wants to republish as a symbol of their tragic end. To
conclude, dream functions sometimes as a source of inspiration but
here it becomes a source of horror with lots of inspiration and
thoughts.