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Literary Devices
Definition of Allusion
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals, historical events, or philosophical ideas... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to other literary works, famous individuals... read full definition
In literature, an allusion is an unexplained reference to someone or something outside of the text. Writers commonly allude to... read full definition
Part 4, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Dorian Gray:
Jean Louise alludes to a famous literary figure in Part 4, Chapter 12 while looking at Atticus:
He had not changed. His face was the same as always. I don't know why I expected him to be looking like Dorian Gray or somebody.
Dorian Gray is the titular character of Oscar Wilde's only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890. In the novel, Dorian stops aging while a portrait of him ages rapidly in his place. When Jean Louise says she expects Atticus to look like Dorian, then, she means she expects him to look like the extremely decayed and distorted version of Dorian that is seen in the portrait. However, he looks the same as always.
Looking at herself in the mirror later in that chapter, Jean Louise realizes that she is the one who looks older, exacerbated by the fact that she is still unmarried and her "clock is ticking":
She looked at herself in the medicine-cabinet mirror. Who's Dorian now?
There were blue-brown shadows under her eyes, and the lines from her nostrils to the corners of her mouth were definite. [...] I couldn't care less. By the time I'm ready to get married I'll be ninety and then it'll be too late. Who'll bury me?
Though Jean Louise expects to see major changes in her father, it turns out she is the one who has changed. If in New York she was a young woman free to live as she pleased, here she has aged out of her prime. What she sees in the mirror is what Maycomb sees: a stubborn spinster.
