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Alliteration
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
Key Examples in Bleak House
Chapter 1
Explanation and Analysis—The Flood:
In the first paragraph of the novel, Dickens alludes to the biblical story of the Flood which drowned the world in the Bible's Book of Genesis, using imagery from that story to describe the sloshy density of the mud covering London:
LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Dick Whittington:
Dickens alludes to an English folk tale at the beginning of Chapter 5. In doing so, he invokes the history of England and emphasizes the difference between the smoky streets of London and the fresh air of the "real country road," as Esther recounts:
Unlock with LitCharts A+At last we got into a real country road again, with windmills, rickyards, milestones, farmers’ wagons, scents of old hay, swinging signs and horse troughs: trees, fields, and hedgerows. It was delightful to see the green landscape before us, and the immense metropolis behind; and when a wagon with a train of beautiful horses, furnished with red trappings and clear-sounding bells, came by us with its music, I believe we could all three have sung to the bells, so cheerful were the influences around. ‘The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington,’ said Richard [...]
Related Themes:
Chapter 15
Explanation and Analysis—Dispensing with Coavinses:
In Chapter 15, Dickens employs hyperbole to illuminate Mr. Skimpole's overestimation of his own importance and his total misunderstanding of social realities. Skimpole blithely discusses Mr. Neckett's death with Esther—getting Neckett's name mixed up with "Coavinses," the prison they've just visited— saying he had never really thought much of the man before seeing his children:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[...] look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr Skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of Coavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could have dispensed with Coavinses. There had been times, when, if he had been a Sultan, and his Grand Vizier had said one morning, ‘What does the Commander of the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?’ he might have even gone so far as to reply, ‘The head of Coavinses!’
Related Themes:
Chapter 32
Explanation and Analysis—Spontaneous Combustion:
This novel contains the highly unusual motif of spontaneous combustion, an improbable event that happens to the shopkeeper Mr. Krook about two-thirds of the way through. In Chapter 32, the narrator ties together his death, an allusion to the classical theory of bodily "humours," and the ever-present theme of the Chancery's uselessness in the following way:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Plenty will come in, but none can help. The Lord Chancellor of that Court, true to his title in his last act, has died the death of all Lord Chancellors in all Courts, and of all authorities in all places under all names soever, where false pretences are made, and where injustice is done [...] it is the same death eternally – inborn, inbred, engendered in the corrupted humours of the vicious body itself, and that only – Spontaneous Combustion, and none other of all the deaths that can be died.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—The Eyes of Argus:
Dickens alludes to classical mythology within a simile in Chapter 32, referencing the Greek myth of Argus Panoptes. Describing the visual imagery of the "clogged lamps" of Chancery as being like the endlessly watching eyes of Argus, the narrator says:
Unlock with LitCharts A+From tiers of staircase windows, clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity, bleared Argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye upon it, dimly blink at the stars. In dirty upper casements, here and there, hazy little patches of candle-light reveal where some wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement of real estate in meshes of sheepskin, in the average ratio of about a dozen of sheep to an acre of land.
Related Themes:
Chapter 48
Explanation and Analysis—Aristocratic English:
Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock have a "debilitated cousin" who speaks a dialect of English that is so aristocratically British that it's almost nonsense. For example, in Chapter 48 this "cousin" describes Lady Dedlock in the following way, while also alluding to William Shakespeare's play Macbeth:
Unlock with LitCharts A+she’s beauty nough – tsetup Shopofwomen – but rather larming kind – remindingmanfact – inconvenient woman – who will getoutofbedandbawthstablishment – Shakespeare.
Related Themes:
