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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 2
Explanation and Analysis—Master Plan of the East:
The narrator of White Teeth is frequently metafictional, meaning the novel makes reference to the narrative itself on a variety of occasions. In Chapter 2, the narrator informs the reader that in order to understand the story of Clara Bowden, the reader must first understand the story of Ryan Topps. The narrator articulates this through a simile comparing its own narration and a historian's work on Nazi Germany:
Clara was from somewhere. She had roots. More specifically, she was from Lambeth (via Jamaica) and she was connected, through tacit adolescent agreement, to one Ryan Topps. Because before Clara was beautiful she was ugly. And before there was Clara and Archie there was Clara and Ryan. And there is no getting away from Ryan Topps. Just as a good historian need recognize Hitler’s Napoleonic ambitions in the east in order to comprehend his reluctance to invade the British in the west, so Ryan Topps is essential to any understanding of why Clara did what she did. Ryan is indispensable.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Things Fall Apart:
In Chapter 9, the narrator lays out the rebellious affect of Millat's raggastani crew. This passage describes their limping gait by making an allusion to William Butler Yeats's famous poem "The Second Coming":
Unlock with LitCharts A+And they walked in a very particular way, the left side of their bodies assuming a kind of loose paralysis that needed carrying along by the right side; a kind of glorified, funky limp like the slow, padding movement that Yeats imagined for his rough millennial beast. Ten years early, while the happy acidheads danced through the Summer of Love, Millat’s Crew were slouching toward Bradford.
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Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—A Good Play on Words:
In Chapter 5, Irie doesn't recognize Joshua Chalfen, even though they share multiple classes. Irie throws an (altogether rather mild) insult at Joshua, and the narrator makes an allusion to French theater to describe how inured he has become to such jabs:
Unlock with LitCharts A+“Joshua Chalfen. I was in Manor Primary. And we’re in English together. And we’re in orchestra together.”
“No, we’re not. I’m in orchestra. You’re in orchestra. In no sense are we there together.”
The goblin, the elder, and the dwarf, who appreciated a good play on words, had a snivelly giggle at that one. But insults meant nothing to Joshua. Joshua was the Cyrano de Bergerac of taking insults. He’d taken insults [...] coming out the other side to smug. An insult was but a pebble in his path, only proving the intellectual inferiority of she who threw it. He continued regardless.
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Their 42:
In Chapter 11 the narrator introduces the behaviors and practices of the students of Glenard Oak. None are more important than the widespread, extreme addiction to cigarettes (or, in English slang, "fags"). The narrator hyperbolically describes how important cigarettes are to the students while making an allusion to a classic science-fiction novel:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Smoking was their answer to the universe, their 42, their raison d’être. They were passionate about fags. Not connoisseurs, not fussy about brand, just fags, any fags. They pulled at them like babies at teats, and when they were finally finished their eyes were wet as they ground the butts into the mud.
Explanation and Analysis—Black Beauty's Heir:
In Chapter 11, Irie attends an English class with Mrs. Olive Roody, seemingly on the topic of Shakespeare's sonnets. Specifically, the class focuses on the "Dark Lady" sonnets, which follow the speaker's courtship of a dour, dark-skinned older woman. The passage makes allusion to Sonnets 127 and 130:
Unlock with LitCharts A+"Sonnet 127, please.” “In the old age black was not counted fair,” continued Francis Stone in the catatonic drone with which students read Elizabethan verse. “Or if it were, it bore not beauty’s name.”
[...]
“Therefore my mistress’ eyes are raven black, her brows so suited, and they mourners seem…My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips’ red. If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun…”
Related Themes:
Chapter 16
Explanation and Analysis—Through a Glass, Darkly:
In Chapter 16, Marcus tries, to the best of his ability, to give vague historical context to his meeting with Magid at the airport. The narrator makes an allusion to Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament to describe his preference for science over history:
Unlock with LitCharts A+He was no student of history (and science had taught him that the past was where we did things through a glass, darkly, whereas the future was always brighter, a place where we did things right or at least right-er), he had no stories to scare him concerning a dark man meeting a white man, both with heavy expectations, but only one with the power.
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Chapter 17
Explanation and Analysis—Unmoved:
In Millat and Magid's argument in Chapter 17, their different beliefs prevent any progress in convincing one another. The narrator describes this impasse by alluding to Zeno's paradox of the arrows:
Unlock with LitCharts A+They seem to make no progress. The cynical might say they don’t even move at all—that Magid and Millat are two of Zeno’s [...] arrows, occupying a space equal to themselves and, what is scarier, equal to Mangal Pande’s, equal to Samad Iqbal’s. Two brothers trapped in the temporal instant. Two brothers who pervert all attempts to put dates to this story, to track these guys, to offer times and days, because there isn’t, wasn’t, and never will be any duration. In fact, nothing moves. Nothing changes. They are running at a standstill. Zeno’s paradox.
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