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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 1
Explanation and Analysis—Tom Sawyer:
One of the first allusions that Twain includes in Huckleberry Finn is another book he himself wrote called The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Huck as the narrator references the book in the opening sentences of Huckleberry Finn:
You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,’ but that ain’t no matter.
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Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—Don Quixote:
Near the beginning of the novel, Huck is spending time with Tom Sawyer and his gang of boys and challenges some of the far-fetched stories that Tom tells about invisible people and animals. In recounting Tom’s response, Huck makes an allusion to the book Don Quixote:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He said if I warn’t so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment.
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Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Abolitionism:
Near the beginning of his time on the Mississippi River with Jim, Huck learns that Jim is running away because he doesn’t want to be sold and end up separated from his wife and kids. After sharing this with Huck, Jim asks Huck not to tell anyone, and Huck's response contains both an allusion and foreshadowing:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for keeping mum—but that don’t make no difference. I ain’t agoing to tell, and I ain’t agoing back there anyways.”
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Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Pilgrim's Progress:
After being separated from Jim and winding up in the care of the aristocratic Grangerford family, Huck looks around their house and notices a pile of books. This moment contains an allusion to Pilgrim's Progress:
Unlock with LitCharts A+There was some books, too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a big family Bible, full of pictures. One was Pilgrim’s Progress, about a man that left his family it didn’t say why.
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Chapter 18
Explanation and Analysis—Hatfield-McCoy Feud:
Partway through the novel, Huck is separated from Jim and ends up being taken in by an aristocratic family called the Grangerfords. It is through a conversation with Buck Grangerford that he learns the family is in a vicious feud with another family called the Shepherdsons, which is likely an allusion to the Hatfield-McCoy feud:
Unlock with LitCharts A+‘‘Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?’’
‘‘Why, nothing—only it’s on account of the feud.’’
‘‘What’s a feud?’’
[…]
‘‘Well,’’ says Buck, ‘‘a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with another man, and kills him; then that other man’s brother kills him; then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the cousins chip in— and by and by everybody’s killed off, and there ain’t no more feud.’’
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Chapter 35
Explanation and Analysis—Prison Escapees:
Near the end of the novel, Tom tries to convince Huck to help Jim escape from captivity in a dramatic fashion, alluding to several historical figures in the process:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Why, hain’t you ever read any books at all?—Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Whoever heard of getting a prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that?”
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