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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
Key Examples in Middlesex
Allusions
Explanation and Analysis—Calliope:
The narrator of Middlesex once used the name Calliope, while they lived as a girl. Calliope's name is in and of itself an allusion, referring to the Calliope of Greek myth. Calliope is one of four Muses, goddesses devoted to supporting literature and art. Appropriately, the goddess Calliope specializes in epic poetry, presiding over its creation just like Middlesex's narrator.
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Book 1: The Silver Spoon
Explanation and Analysis—Tiresias:
At the beginning of Chapter 1, Cal/lie begins to describe their experience as an intersex person, alluding to Greek mythology:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Like Tiresias, I was first one thing and then the other. I’ve been ridiculed by classmates, guinea-pigged by doctors, palpated by specialists, and researched by the March of Dimes. […] An army tank led me into urban battle once; a swimming pool turned me into myth; I’ve left my body in order to occupy others—and all this happened before I turned sixteen.
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Book 1: Matchmaking
Explanation and Analysis—Sociobiology:
In the following passage from Chapter 2, Cal/lie ponders the evolutionary forces that might have driven their grandparents' mutual attraction. They allude to E. O. Wilson, considered the founder of the field of sociobiology in the 20th century:
Unlock with LitCharts A+As I sit here in my Aeron chair, thinking E. O. Wilson thoughts. Was it love or reproduction? Chance or destiny? Crime or nature at work? Maybe the gene contained an override, ensuring its expression, which would explain Desdemona’s tears and Lefty’s taste in prostitutes; not fondness, not emotional sympathy; only the need for this new thing to enter the world and hence the heart’s rigged game.
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Book 1: An Immodest Proposal
Explanation and Analysis—The Waste Land:
Chapter 3 contains an allusion to T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land, a critical and oft-referenced piece of Modernist writing. The allusion occurs in reference to Smyrna:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Smyrna endures today in a few rebetika songs and a stanza from The Waste Land:
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant
Unshaven, with a pocketful of currants
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,
Asked me in demotic French
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.Everything you need to know about Smyrna is contained in that.
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Book 1: The Silk Road
Explanation and Analysis—Winged Victory:
After Lefty and Desdemona marry in Chapter 4, they retreat inside a covered lifeboat that doubles as their marital bed. Lefty undresses her, realizing that Desdemona smuggled more than silkworms onboard: she wears their mother's corset under her clothes. In an example of both simile and allusion, Cal/lie compares her corset-clad grandmother to the famous Greek statue, Winged Victory of Samothrace:
Unlock with LitCharts A+In the lifeboat, the corset absorbed all available moonlight, with the odd result that Desdemona’s face, head, and arms disappeared. She looked like Winged Victory, tumbled on her back, being carted off to a conqueror’s museum. All that was missing was the wings.
Explanation and Analysis—Darwin and Eugenics:
In the following excerpt from Chapter 4, Cal/lie alludes to Charles Darwin, referencing his seminal work On the Origin of Species. Cal/lie specifically mentions Darwin in conjunction with eugenic rhetoric (i.e., aversion to so-called undesirables or degenerates within a population).
Unlock with LitCharts A+The Immigration Restriction League had been formed in 1894. On the floor of the U.S. Senate, Henry Cabot Lodge thumped a copy of On the Origin of Species, warning that the influx of inferior peoples from southern and eastern Europe threatened “the very fabric of our race.” The Immigration Act of 1917 barred thirty-three kinds of undesirables from entering the United States, and so, in 1922, on the deck of the Giulia, passengers discussed how to escape the categories.
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Book 2: Henry Ford’s English-Language Melting Pot
Explanation and Analysis—Sappho:
In Chapter 5, readers are introduced to Sourmelina Zizmo, cousin to Lefty and Desdemona. Cal/lie quickly reveals that Sourmelina is almost exclusively attracted to other women, feeling little to no affection for her husband and her arranged marriage. In revealing this, Cal/lie alludes to Greek literature:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Sourmelina’s secret (as Aunt Zo put it): “Lina was one of those women they named the island after.”
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