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Allegory
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
Book 1, Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—The Writing on the Wall:
In the scene where a wine cask spills onto the streets of Saint Antoine, Dickens alludes to the Hebrew Bible:
Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dripped in muddy wine lees—BLOOD.
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Book 2, Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—A New Philosophy:
Speaking to his nephew, Darnay, the Marquis St. Evrémonde alludes to a “new philosophy” that is changing the social order in France:
Unlock with LitCharts A+We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience.
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Book 2, Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Counting Dropping Heads:
The sinister knitting of the Saint Antoine peasant women is an allusion to the Fates of Greek mythology. In this passage, the peasant women seem to be ushering in the revolution with every turn of their needles:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon […] So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.
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Book 2, Chapter 24
Explanation and Analysis—The Loadstone Rock:
Dickens alludes to “The Third Calender’s Tale” from The Arabian Nights as he describes Darnay’s dangerous resolution to return to Paris to help Monsieur Gabelle:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction.
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Explanation and Analysis—Monseigneur and the Devil:
Dickens alludes to popular fables and superstitions to highlight the central role that Monseigneur plays in bringing about his own downfall:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years […] no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels.
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Book 3, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Windows of Heaven:
Dickens uses the image of a flood and of the heavens opening to contrast revolutionary energy with Christian faith:
Unlock with LitCharts A+What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty—the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened!
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Explanation and Analysis—The Blind Strongman:
Dickens alludes to the story of Samson in the Hebrew Bible when he describes the executioner of Paris, whose name was Charles-Henri Sanson:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked [the guillotine]; but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own Temple every day.
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Book 3, Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Carton's Sacrifice:
The language surrounding Sydney Carton’s death at the guillotine is filled with allusions to the crucifixion of Christ. Carton is executed at three o’clock in the afternoon, which is the same time that Jesus died on the cross, according to the New Testament. As he steps towards the guillotine, Carton recites John 11:25, a scriptural verse in which Christ prophesies about the resurrection. When Carton is executed, Dickens describes the reaction of the crowd:
Unlock with LitCharts A+The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three.
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