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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 6
Explanation and Analysis—The Borgias :
Ashley Wilkes alludes to the House of Borgia, an aristocratic family that gained prominence and notoriety during the Italian Renaissance, after Rhett Butler makes an appearance at Twelve Oaks during a large party:
All the ladies except Mrs. Tarleton moved out of the back yard, leaving the shade of oaks and arbor to the men [...] Ashley strolled over to where Scarlett and Charles sat, a thoughtful and amused smile on his face. “Arrogant devil, isn’t he?” he observed, looking after Butler. “He looks like one of the Borgias.”
Scarlett thought quickly but could remember no family in the County or Atlanta or Savannah by that name. “I don’t know them. Is he kin to them? Who are they?”
An odd look came over Charles’ face, incredulity and shame struggling with love.
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Explanation and Analysis—Samson:
Mitchell alludes to Samson, a notable figure from the biblical book of Judges, in a scene in which Scarlett feels humiliated after she overhears Honey Wilkes and other girls criticizing her behavior at the party at Twelve Oaks:
Unlock with LitCharts A+She couldn’t run away! She would have to see it through, bear all the malice of the girls and her own humiliation and heartbreak. To run away would only give them more ammunition. She pounded her clenched fist against the tall white pillar beside her, and she wished that she were Samson, so that she could pull down all of Twelve Oaks and destroy every person in it. She’d make them sorry. She’d show them. She didn’t quite see how she’d show them, but she’d do it all the same. She’d hurt them worse than they hurt her.
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Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Bulwer-Lytton:
Mitchell alludes to English writer and politician Edward Bulwer-Lytton in a passage that gently satirizes the tastes of Scarlett's relatives who live in Charleston:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Aunt Pauline and her husband [...] lived on a plantation on the river, far more isolated than Tara. Their nearest neighbor was twenty miles away by dark roads through still jungles of cypress swamp and oak. The live oaks with their waving curtains of gray moss gave Scarlett the creeps and always brought to her mind Gerald’s stories of Irish ghosts roaming in shimmering gray mists. There was nothing to do but knit all day and at night listen to Uncle Carey read aloud from the improving works of Mr. Bulwer-Lytton.
Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Triumvirate :
When Scarlett arrives in Atlanta following the death of her husband Charles, Mitchell employs both allusion and metaphor in her portrayal of Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Elsing, and Mrs. Whiting, three prominent and influential women in Atlanta society:
Unlock with LitCharts A+These two ladies with a third, Mrs. Whiting, were the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged, the clergy, the choirs and the parishioners [...] They knew what was decorous behavior and what was not and they never failed to make their opinions known—Mrs. Merriwether at the top of her voice, Mrs. Elsing in an elegant die-away drawl and Mrs. Whiting in a distressed whisper which showed how much she hated to speak of such things. These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.
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Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Father and the Son :
At the charity bazaar, Scarlett realizes that she does not truly care about the cause of the Confederacy, unlike the other attendees, who glow with a fanatic zeal as they cheer on their soldiers. When Scarlett looks "glumly" at her surroundings, Mitchell uses both allusion and simile:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Scarlett sat and looked glumly around the room. Even the banked flowers below the pictures of Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens displeased her. “It looks like an altar,” she sniffed. “And the way they all carry on about those two, they might as well be the Father and the Son!” Then smitten with sudden fright at her irreverence she began hastily to cross herself by way of apology but caught herself in time.
“Well, it’s true,” she argued with her conscience. “Everybody carries on like they were holy and they aren’t anything but men, and mighty unattractive looking ones at that.”
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Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Thermopylae :
As the Union forces make their way further South, many of the most vocal supporters of the Confederacy in Atlanta continue to deny the obvious: that the North is winning the war and will soon reach their city. Arguing, against Rhett, for the inevitability of Southern victory, Dr. Meade alludes to the 480 B.C.E. Battle of Thermopylae, fought between an alliance of Greek city-states led by Sparta and the Persian Empire:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He did not speak and Dr. Meade thundered, losing his temper: “Our men have fought without shoes before and without food and won victories. And they will fight again and win! I tell you General Johnston cannot be dislodged! The mountain fastnesses have always been the refuge and the strong forts of invaded peoples from ancient times. Think of—think of Thermopylae!”
Scarlett thought hard but Thermopylae meant nothing to her.
“They died to the last man at Thermopylae, didn’t they, Doctor?” Rhett asked, and his lips twitched with suppressed laughter.
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Chapter 30
Explanation and Analysis—Hamlet:
The novel alludes to Hamlet by William Shakespeare in a scene in which Will Benteen finds some Confederate dollars, which Scarlett dismisses as worthless:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“We’ve got three thousand dollars of it in Pa’s trunk this minute, and Mammy’s after me to let her paste it over the holes in the attic walls so the draft won’t get her. And I think I’ll do it. Then it’ll be good for something.”
“‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,’” said Melanie with a sad smile. “Don’t do that, Scarlett. Keep it for Wade. He’ll be proud of it some day.”
“Well, I don’t know nothin’ about imperious Caesar,” said Will, patiently.
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Chapter 31
Explanation and Analysis—Dusk of the Gods:
When he returns from a military prison in the North, Ashley appears to Scarlett a defeated man who struggles to process the profound changes that the war has brought to their lives. Speaking to Scarlett in a somber and pessimistic mood, he alludes to the "Götterdämmerung," a German phrase (a literal translation of the Norse "Ragnarök") that he paraphrases as "a dusk of the gods":
Unlock with LitCharts A+“In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven’t are winnowed out. At least, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a Götterdämmerung.”
“A what?”
“A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.”
“For Heaven’s sake, Ashley Wilkes! Don’t stand there and talk nonsense at me."
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Chapter 38
Explanation and Analysis—Uncle Tom's Cabin:
After the war, Scarlett ingratiates herself with the "carpetbaggers" from the North in order to do business with them and increase her fortune. In a satirical passage, Mitchell alludes to Uncle Tom's Cabin, a widely popular 1852 novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe that helped fuel the abolitionist cause by depicting the horrors of slavery:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Accepting Uncle Tom’s Cabin as revelation second only to the Bible, the Yankee women all wanted to know about the bloodhounds which every Southerner kept to track down runaway slaves. And they never believed her when she told them she had only seen one bloodhound in all her life and it was a small mild dog and not a huge ferocious mastiff. They wanted to know about the dreadful branding irons which planters used to mark the faces of their slaves and the cat-o’-nine-tails with which they beat them to death [...]
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