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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
Explanation and Analysis—The Rosenbergs :
Allusions to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple who were controversially convicted of espionage and later executed by electrocution, serve as an important motif in The Bell Jar. Esther repeatedly reflects upon the execution of the Rosenbergs throughout the novel, reflecting her morbid preoccupation with death and complex feelings about morality:
(I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I’d been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I’d totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue.)
Chapter 2
Explanation and Analysis—Waters of Jordan:
Esther alludes to the religious practice of baptism and to the “waters of Jordan” described in the Bible while taking a bath:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near onto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don’t believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water. I said to myself: “Doreen is dissolving, Lenny Shepherd is dissolving, Frankie is dissolving [...] I have never known them and I am very pure.
Related Themes:
Chapter 5
Explanation and Analysis—Dust:
In an imagined argument with Buddy, whom she had been dating prior to going to New York, Esther uses both allusion and logos in order to defend poetry from Buddy’s criticism:
Unlock with LitCharts A+I imagined Buddy saying, “Do you know what a poem is, Esther?” “No, what?” I would say. “A piece of dust.” Then just as he was smiling and starting to look proud, I would say, “So are the cadavers you cut up. So are the people you think you’re curing. They’re dust as dust as dust. I reckon a good poem lasts a whole lot longer than a hundred of those people put together.” And of course Buddy wouldn’t have any answer to that, because what I said was true. People were made of nothing so much as dust [...]
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—The Rosenbergs :
Allusions to Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a married couple who were controversially convicted of espionage and later executed by electrocution, serve as an important motif in The Bell Jar. Esther repeatedly reflects upon the execution of the Rosenbergs throughout the novel, reflecting her morbid preoccupation with death and complex feelings about morality:
Unlock with LitCharts A+(I knew something was wrong with me that summer, because all I could think about was the Rosenbergs and how stupid I’d been to buy all those uncomfortable, expensive clothes, hanging limp as fish in my closet, and how all the little successes I’d totted up so happily at college fizzled to nothing outside the slick marble and plate-glass fronts along Madison Avenue.)
Chapter 13
Explanation and Analysis—Catholicism :
Esther alludes to various Catholic beliefs and practices in a passage where she debates converting to Catholicism in order to discourage herself from suicide:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Lately I had considered going into the Catholic Church myself. I knew that Catholics thought killing yourself was an awful sin. But perhaps, if this was so, they might have a good way to persuade me out of it. Of course, I didn’t believe in life after death or the virgin birth or the Inquisition or the infallibility of that little monkey-faced Pope or anything, but I didn’t have to let the priest see this, I could just concentrate on my sin, and he would help me repent.
