Allusions Examples
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Literary Allusion: Definition and Examples
Lesson Plans by Kristy Littlehale
Allusions, while important to helping readers understand themes and characters on a deeper level, can sometimes be hard for students to grasp. Engage and challenge students with activities from Storyboard That!
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Storyboard Description
Literary Allusion Examples - Allusion Definition in Literature - literary device
Storyboard Text
- The Grapes of Wrath
- ALLUSION
- HOW IT ENHANCES MEANING
- The title of the novel is taken from The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe in 1861, and also connect to Biblical verses in Isaiah 63 and Revelations 14:19-20. Both refer to God's judgment and restoration of righteousness in the face of oppression and wrongdoing.
- In the name of the King!
- The Joads and other farming families were thrown off of their land and needed gainful employment, which they often could not find because of the greedy landowners who hire migrant workers for less than a living wage. The title hearkens back to the powerful imagery in the hymn and the Bible of God destroying the oppressors of the world. The novel works as a plea to God to grant justice to the exploited and disenfranchised families and workers like the Joads.
- HARRY'S HARDWARE
- Letter from a Birmingham Jail
- Martin Luther King, Jr. makes reference to T.S. Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral when he writes: “As T.S. Eliot has said: ‘The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason.’” The play is about Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket who was murdered, and later declared a martyr, for his refusal agree to the crowning of King Henry II.
- King references this particular line to strengthen his argument that while the police departments have been nonviolent in public, their good deed of nonviolence is to preserve an immoral system of segregation. Therefore, their efforts to be nonviolent (the right deed) are lost on the demonstrators, because they are still maintaining the institution of segregation, which is unjust (the wrong reason).
- Whites Only
- WE DEMAND EQUALITY!
- BAN SEGREGATION NOW!
- ALL men are created equal!
- JIM CROW
- SEPARATE IS NOT EQUAL!
- All power tools 50% off!
- THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING
- Arthur has finally realized that Might should only be used for Right; his brother Kay reasons that Right could mean forcibly imposing a better way of life upon people. Merlyn becomes furious, and says, There was just such a man when I was young - an Austrian who invented a new way of life and convinced himself that he was the chap to make it work. He tried to impose his reformation by the sword, and plunged the civilized world into misery and chaos. Merlyn is referring to Hitler.
- Merlyn juxtaposes the idea of Hitler forcibly imposing ideas on others with another reformer, Jesus, who made his ideas available and let people decide whether to accept them or reject them. This quiets Kay down, and Merlyn points out Arthur's current conflict with King Lot is because he wants to impose his ideas upon him, which is not the true meaning of Might only for Right. If Arthur is going to be a new kind of King, he needs to stop acting like the old ones.
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