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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
Chapter 1: I Am Born
Explanation and Analysis—Hamlet:
In Chapter 1, David compares Mr. Chillip, the doctor who delivers him, to the Ghost of Hamlet. This allusion is one of a great many allusions to Shakespeare's Hamlet:
He was the meekest of his sex, the mildest of little men. He sidled in and out of a room, to take up the less space. He walked as softly as the Ghost in Hamlet, and more slowly. He carried his head on one side, partly in modest depreciation of himself, partly in modest propitiation of everybody else.
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Chapter 13: The Sequel of My Resolution
Explanation and Analysis—Young Cain:
In Chapter 13, David finds himself at his aunt's house after running away from the factory Mr. Murdstone has sent him to work in. His aunt, Miss Betsey Trotwood, alludes to the biblical story of Cain and Abel to criticize Clara Copperfield's parenting:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘And then, as if this was not enough, and she had not stood sufficiently in the light of this child’s sister, Betsey Trotwood,’ said my aunt, ‘she marries a second time—goes and marries a Murderer—or a man with a name like it—and stands in this child’s light! And the natural consequence is, as anybody but a baby might have foreseen, that he prowls and wanders. He’s as like Cain before he was grown up, as he can be.’
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Chapter 19: I Look About Me, and Make a Discovery
Explanation and Analysis—Julius Caesar:
In Chapter 19, the novel alludes to Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. David goes to see the play, and the adult narrator reflects on the experience:
Unlock with LitCharts A+To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect.
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Chapter 43: Another Retrospect
Explanation and Analysis—Ancient Mariner:
In Chapter 43, David marries Dora. One of the people he remembers being in attendance is an "ancient mariner," which is an allusion to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Of the clergyman and clerk appearing; of a few boatmen and some other people strolling in; of an ancient mariner behind me, strongly flavoring the church with rum; of the service beginning in a deep voice, and our all being very attentive.
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Chapter 61: I Am Shown Two Interesting Penitents
Explanation and Analysis—Panopticon:
In Chapter 61, Mr. Creakle writes to the now-famous David and invites him to visit the prison he now oversees as a magistrate. The prison is an allusion to Jeremy Bentham's panopticon, a model for prisons that boomed during the Victorian era:
Unlock with LitCharts A+[I]t struck me, when we began to visit individuals in their cells, and to traverse the passages in which those cells were, and to have the manner of the going to chapel and so forth, explained to us, that there was a strong probability of the prisoners [...] carrying on a pretty complete system of intercourse. This, at the time I write, has been proved, I believe, to be the case; but, as it would have been flat blasphemy against the system to have hinted such a doubt then, I looked out for the penitence as diligently as I could.
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