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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
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Life Like Smooth Stream:
Walter's months in Cumberland with Laura and Marian go by cheerfully and quickly. He uses a simile to compare this period of time to a smooth stream, but he also indicates that danger looms ahead:
The days passed, the weeks passed; it was approaching the third month of my stay in Cumberland. The delicious monotony of life in our calm seclusion, flowed on with me like a smooth stream with a swimmer who glides down the current. All memory of the past, all thought of the future, all sense of the falseness and hopelessness of my own position, lay hushed within me into deceitful rest. Lulled by the Syren-song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks.
Walter takes immense pleasure in his life at Limmeridge. He gets along very well with Marian and Laura, and he enjoys his work. In relation to this, he compares himself to a swimmer gliding through a stream in the direction of the current. He knows that thinking of the future would interrupt his flow in the stream, and he therefore completely immerses himself in the present for as long as he can.
The simile acquires a menacing undertone within a couple of sentences, however. Walter and Laura are falling in love with one another, which can't end well because their positions in society are too far apart. Alluding to the sirens of Greek mythology, creatures that lure sailors onto rocks and cause shipwrecks, Walter explains that he closed his eyes to a rational view of the situation and willingly sustained the fantasy for as long as he could. Eventually, however, Walter knows he will hit the rocks when he and Laura inevitably come to be separated.
The First Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Schoolboy as Crusoe:
When Marian and Walter go into the village near Limmeridge to inquire about the identity of the person who sent the anonymous letter to Laura, they end up at the local school. Seeking the schoolmaster, they walk in on one of the boys being punished, and Walter uses a metaphor to describe him:
The schoolmaster was sitting at his high desk, with his back to me, apparently haranguing the pupils, who were all gathered together in front of him, with one exception. The one exception was a sturdy white-headed boy, standing apart from all the rest on a stool in a corner—a forlorn little Crusoe, isolated in his own desert island of solitary penal disgrace.
The metaphor of the "forlorn little Crusoe" is an allusion to Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, one of the earliest English-language novels. Published in 1719, the novel tells the story of how its eponymous main character and narrator ends up stranded on a desert island—and how he survived to tell the tale. Walter compares the schoolboy to exaggerate his separation from the crowd of other schoolboys. Over the course of his life on the island, Crusoe comes to see his isolation as Providence's way of delivering him from a life of sin. The schoolmaster has similarly isolated the boy on his stool to compel him to see the error of his ways. His reason for being punished is that he claims to have seen a ghost the night before. And not just any ghost—the ghost of Mrs. Fairlie. The boy stubbornly maintains this claim.
It turns out that the little Crusoe is being punished for telling the truth—though he may not have seen the ghost of Mrs. Fairlie like he claims, he did see the ghostly Woman in White. Through this, he ends up giving Marian and Walter an indispensable clue that brings them one step closer to solving the mystery.
The Third Epoch: Part 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Solomon in All His Glory:
Walter returns to the scene of the fire the second day after Sir Percival's death. In his description of the sight that meets him and his lament over what happened, he cites the Gospel:
There is nothing serious in mortality! Solomon in all his glory, was Solomon with the elements of the contemptible lurking in every fold of his robes and in every corner of his palace.
"Solomon in all his glory" is a direct citation of Matthew 6:29, from the Sermon on the Mount. In this part of the Sermon, Christ says "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Solomon, the son of David, was a king of ancient Israel. He was known for his immense wisdom, extravagant wealth, lavish palaces, and beautiful clothing. In the sermon, Christ is saying that the sumptuous signs of Solomon's beauty can't measure up with that of the wildflowers.
When Walter returns to the site of Sir Percival's death, he feels disturbed to see how quickly people seem to have forgotten what happened there. He laments how "the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together" in "our unintelligible world." He is surprised by how quickly Sir Percival's circumstances changed—and, as a result, his own—because of the unexpected fire. Through the allusion to Matthew, Walter reflects on the incomprehensible ugliness of the world.
The Third Epoch: Part 4, Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—Fosco's Great Men:
During Count Fosco's narrative, he explains that he is a skilled chemist. In order to convince his reader of his knowledge of chemistry, he combines ethos with allusion. Invoking a series of great historical figures, Count Fosco claims that he could easily have changed the course of cultural, intellectual, or political history by traveling back in time and exercising his chemistry on them.
The first figure that Count Fosco alludes to is William Shakespeare:
Give me—Fosco—chemistry; and when Shakespeare has conceived Hamlet, and sits down to execute the conception— with a few grains of powder dropped into his daily food, I will reduce his mind, by the action of his body, till his pen pours out the most abject drivel that has ever degraded paper.
Count Fosco claims that with just "a few grains of powder" he could have incapacitated Shakespeare and kept him from writing his magnum opus. He goes on, once again emphasizing his authority by claiming that he could have swayed the mind of one of history's most influential mathematicians and physicists, Sir Isaac Newton:
Under similar circumstances, revive me the illustrious Newton. I guarantee that, when he sees the apple fall, he shall eat it, instead of discovering the principle of gravitation.
The mention of the apple is a reference to the legend that Newton formulated his law of gravitational theory after watching an apple fall, when he was led to ponder why the apple fell down instead of sideways or even upward. Count Fosco proceeds to the realm of famous rulers, alluding to the Roman emperor Nero and the Macedonian king Alexander the Great in a single sentence:
Nero’s dinner, shall transform Nero into the mildest of men, before he has done digesting it; and the morning draught of Alexander the Great, shall make Alexander run for his life, at the first sight of the enemy, the same afternoon.
Nero is known for having been a tyrannical leader, and Alexander changed the course of history by creating one of the world's largest empires. It is therefore a bold assertion on the Count's part that he would have been able to turn them into mild and timid men.
Count Fosco's allusions to these great men during his narrative serve his purpose of emphasizing his own authority. Proving that he is well-versed in history, he uses ethos to argue that he is a skilled chemist and more broadly that he is a smart man. Count Fosco does not shy away from placing himself within this lineage of great figures who have had significant influence on the world. It seems like he believes he ought to be remembered centuries after his lifetime, just like the four men he mentions.
Explanation and Analysis—Veni, Vidi, Vici:
In his narrative portion, Count Fosco briefly touches on his visit to Mr. Fairlie. Instead of going into detail about their conversation, he alludes to Julius Caesar and the famous declaration he made on his defeat of Pharnaces:
When I have mentioned that this gentleman was equally feeble in mind and body, and that I let loose the whole force of my character on him, I have said enough. I came, saw, and conquered Fairlie.
Julius Ceasar is believed to have used the phrase "Veni, vidi, vici" ("I came, I saw, I conquered") to boastfully describe his swift victory following a short war with Pharnaces. The Latin phrase has since been heavily quoted in military contexts, literature, and art, and is thereby somewhat of a cliche.
Although he is usually a rather verbose character and narrator, Count Fosco does not waste much ink on describing his meeting with Mr. Fairlie. The reader has already received a more detailed summary of it from Mr. Fairlie himself—and besides, at this late point in the novel, the reader is very familiar with Mr. Fairlie's character and, as a result, most likely finds some humor in this brief recapitulation of the meeting. The allusion feels simultaneously eloquent and trite, and it expresses Count Fosco's impatience and irritation with a man like Mr. Fairlie.
The allusion is comical because, by now, the reader has seen and heard enough of the weak and fussy Mr. Fairlie to know that conquering him is no great feat. Count Fosco knows this just as well as the reader, so he uses verbal irony to underscore the point—the irony of the allusion is certainly intentional. Just like Caesar used the phrase to indicate that his battle was easily won, Count Fosco is snarky about the ease with which he got Mr. Fairlie to do exactly what he wanted.
