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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
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—The Philosopher's Stone:
In an ironic scene, Márquez alludes to the philosopher’s stone, a mythical alchemical substance:
José Arcadio Buendía received his errant son with joy and initiated him in the search for the philosopher’s stone, which he had finally undertaken. One afternoon the boys grew enthusiastic over the flying carpet that went swiftly by the laboratory at window level [...] “Let them dream,” he said. “We’ll do better flying than they are doing, and with more scientific resources than a miserable bedspread.” In spite of his feigned interest, José Arcadio never understood the powers of the philosopher’s egg, which to him looked like a poorly blown bottle.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Sir Francis Drake:
Throughout the novel, Márquez alludes to early figures in the colonial history of Latin America. When detailing José Arcadio Buendía’s journey to the area that he will later christen “Macondo,” the novel alludes to various figures in the history of Elizabethan England, a period marked by the nation’s earliest colonial ventures:
Unlock with LitCharts A+José Arcadio Buendía was completely ignorant of the geography of the region. He knew that to the east there lay an impenetrable mountain chain and that on the other side of the mountains there was the ancient city of Riohacha, where in times past—according to what he had been told by the first Aureliano Buendía, his grandfather—Sir Francis Drake had gone crocodile hunting with cannons and that he repaired them and stuffed them with straw to bring to Queen Elizabeth.
Related Themes:
Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Nostradamus:
Describing Aureliano during the early years of his adulthood, the narrator alludes to 16th-century French astrologer Nostradamus, who is best known for a series of poems which allegedly prophesy future events:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He was an expert silversmith, praised all over the swampland for the delicacy of his work. In the workshop, which he shared with Melquíades’ mad laboratory, he could barely be heard breathing. He seemed to be taking refuge in some other time, while his father and the gypsy with shouts interpreted the predictions of Nostradamus amidst a noise of flasks and trays and the disaster of spilled acids and silver bromide that was lost in the twists and turns it gave at every instant.
Explanation and Analysis—Francisco the Man:
Shortly after Melquíades returns to Macondo and helps save the town from the amnesia sickness, Francisco the Man, a 200-year-old troubadour, sets up shop in Catarino’s store in order to sing the news he has gathered from beyond the town. In describing this scene, the narrator uses simile and allusion:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The whole town went to listen to him to find out what had happened in the world [...] Aureliano went to Catarino’s store that night. He found Francisco the Man, like a monolithic chameleon, sitting in the midst of a circle of bystanders. He was singing the news with his old, out-of-tune voice, accompanying himself with the same archaic accordion that Sir Walter Raleigh had given him in the Guianas and keeping time with his great walking feet that were cracked from saltpeter.
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Walking Memories:
The narrator uses both allusion and personification to characterize the troubled mental state of Rebeca after a significant period of isolation following her banishing form the Buendía household:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[She] moved in an atmosphere of Saint Elmo’s fire, in a stagnant air where one could still note a hidden smell of gunpowder [...] she had found peace in that house where memories materialized through the strength of implacable evocation and walked like human beings through the cloistered rooms. Leaning back in her wicker rocking chair, looking at Colonel Aureliano Buendía as if he were the one who looked like a ghost out of the past, Rebeca was not even upset by the news that the lands usurped by José Arcadio would be returned to their rightful owners.
