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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
Allusions
Explanation and Analysis—Not Divided in Death:
The final words of the novel are the epigraph written on Maggie and Tom’s shared tomb: “In their death they were not divided.” This epigraph is actually an allusion to the Bible, as it is a quote pulled from 2 Samuel 1:23.
The “they” in the biblical passage refers to Saul and Jonathan, a father and son who died together in battle after having a strained relationship in life (due to Jonathan’s friendship with David, the future King of Israel, whom Saul did not like). Like Saul and Jonathan, Maggie and Tom had a strained relationship in life (for them, due to Maggie’s relationships with Philip and Stephen, with which Tom took issue).
The allusion makes it clear that, like Saul and Jonathan, the Tulliver siblings could only come together in death, as there was so much baggage and resentment between them in life. Saul did not fully forgive Jonathan before their deaths, and the Tulliver siblings also did not have full closure. It is only in their deaths that Maggie and Tom can return to the state they were in as young children—full of love for each other—before anything came between them.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 3
Explanation and Analysis—The History of the Devil:
Near the beginning of the novel, Mr. Tulliver’s sophisticated friend Mr. Riley finds Maggie reading “The History of the Devil” and judges her for it, as seen in the following passage:
Mr Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie’s with petrifying wonder. “Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?” he burst out, at last.
“‘The History of the Devil,’ by Daniel Defoe; not quite the right book for a little girl,” said Mr Riley.
This is an allusion to the book The Political History of the Devil by British writer Daniel Defoe, published in 1726. The book is Defoe’s study of the devil that contains strongly anti-Catholic views.
This moment is meant to show Maggie’s intelligence and rebelliousness—she is reading a book that is meant for adults, specifically for men (as children and women are not supposed to trouble themselves with such challenging topics). It also shows the prejudice and small-mindedness of the Tulliver family, as the book perpetuates discriminatory anti-Catholic views.
This moment is also a subtle example of foreshadowing Maggie’s death by drowning, as seen in Maggie’s description of a picture in the book:
“It’s a dreadful picture, isn’t it? But I can’t help looking at it. That old woman in the water’s a witch — they’ve put her in to find out whether she’s a witch or no, and if she swims she’s a witch, and if she’s drowned — and killed, you know — she’s innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was drowned?”
Here Maggie creates a connection between the woman in the picture (punished, perhaps, for being a witch when she was just a woman) and herself (who also ends up drowning after being ostracized from her community despite being an innocent woman).
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis—Pilgrim's Progress:
At a few points in the novel, the characters mention Pilgrim’s Progress, an allusion to a well-known 1678 allegorical novel by John Bunyan that follows a Christian’s spiritual journey toward heaven. In the following passage near the beginning of the novel, a young Maggie talks to Mr. Riley about the book:
Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the picture she wanted.
“Here he is,” she said, running back to Mr Riley, “and Tom coloured him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays — the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he’s all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes.”
“Go, go!” said Mr Tulliver […] “shut up the book, and let’s hear no more o’ such talk. It is as I thought — the child ’ull learn more mischief nor good wi’ the books. Go, go and see after your mother.”
The quote shows how, as a precocious child, Maggie reads books like Pilgrim’s Progress that were intended to be read by adults—demonstrating her intelligence and thirst for knowledge. That Maggie has no problem talking about the devil in a cavalier way also sets her apart from other children, especially little girls, who are meant to be quiet and prim, more concerned with learning how to sew and other domestic tasks.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—The Prodigal Daughter:
In an example of both foreshadowing and allusion, near the beginning of the novel, when Maggie is visiting Luke (the head miller at the Dorlcote Mill) and his wife, she notices a painting of the prodigal son:
Maggie actually forgot that she had any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son […] “I’m very glad his father took him back again — aren’t you, Luke?” she said. “For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn’t do wrong again.”
The painting Maggie comments on is an allusion to a story in the Bible about a young man who abandons his family and spends all of his inheritance before humbly returning home and asking for forgiveness from his father, which the father readily grants.
Maggie’s statement that she is “glad his father took him back again” is notable in that it sets Maggie up as a character who is very empathetic and in tune with her emotions and also foreshadows the fact that, after running away with Stephen, she will ask for forgiveness from her family. Unfortunately for Maggie, she does not receive this forgiveness from Tom (even as other family members do forgive her) and suffers deeply because of it.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 10
Explanation and Analysis—Medusa:
In a scene near the beginning of the novel—when Maggie and Tom are children—Tom pays more attention to their cousin Lucy, while Maggie (who has just cut off all her hair) feels angry and jealous. In this moment, the narrator combines a metaphor with an allusion, comparing Maggie to Medusa:
“Here, Lucy, you come along with me,” [Tom said] and walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance, looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped.
In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster with hair made of snakes who resented men and turned them to stone when they looked into her eyes. Here Maggie is like a little Medusa in two ways: her newly cut hair is standing in many different directions and she feels resentment towards a man (Tom). Via this metaphor, Maggie is indirectly being compared to Lucy, whose curly, blonde hair is in perfect condition. Unlike Lucy, Maggie is not living up to the feminine ideal.
It’s also notable that Maggie is compared to Medusa here as, later in the novel, three different men (Philip, Stephen, and Bob Jakin) will all comment on how entrancing Maggie’s dark eyes are (and it is Medusa’s powerful eyes that draw men toward her).
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 11
Explanation and Analysis—Romani People:
In the first book of the novel, several characters compare Maggie to a “gypsy” because of her long, dark hair, and she eventually runs away to live with the “gypsies” (only to be returned home later that evening). These references to “gypsies” are actually allusions to the Romani people, a nomadic European ethnic group whose lifestyle has historically been romanticized even as they have been discriminated against.
The following passage captures the way that Maggie both idealizes and looks down on the Romani people:
She would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often told she was like a gypsy, and “half wild,” that when she was miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and being entirely in harmony with circumstances would be to live in a little brown tent on the commons: the gypsies, she considered, would gladly receive her, and pay her much respect on account of her superior knowledge.
By desiring the “harmony” of living in “a little brown tent on the commons” with the Romani people, and simultaneously believing that she has “superior knowledge” to them despite the fact that she is a child, Maggie reproduces stereotypes about their community. This moment highlights Maggie’s ignorance, as well as the ignorance of her family members who call her a “gypsy,” too.
Related Themes:
Book 1, Chapter 12
Explanation and Analysis—Catholic Relief Act:
At a few points in the novel, the narrator mentions “the Catholic question,” an allusion to the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, as seen in the following passage:
But with the Catholic Question had come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderly rector had become occasionally historical and argumentative, and Mr Spray, the Independent minister, had begun to preach political sermons, in which he distinguished with much subtlety between his fervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and his fervent belief in their eternal perdition.
The Catholic Relief Act allowed Catholics to legally become members of Parliament (which, until that point, had only been open to members of the Church of England) and overturned policies like the Penal Laws that imposed fines on people who did not attend Church of England services.
As the quote makes clear, the minister in St. Ogg’s acts as if he supports the passing of the Catholic Relief Act while also reinforcing his belief in Catholics’ “eternal perdition” (or damnation). Readers are meant to understand the minister as a stand-in for the anti-Catholic town generally—St. Ogg’s is a provincial place where prejudice and ignorance are rarely challenged.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Eden:
When reflecting on Maggie’s shifting relationship to Philip as she matures into a young adult, the narrator compares childhood to “Eden,” a biblical allusion:
When they did meet, she remembered her promise to kiss him, but, as a young lady who had been at a boarding-school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the question, and that Philip would not expect it. This promise was void, like so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as promises made in Eden [...] impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed.
This is an allusion to the Garden of Eden, or the biblical paradise from which human life began. In The Mill on the Floss, childhood is an “Eden” in that it is a period of innocence and open-heartedness that is at odds with the real world. As the quote makes clear, Maggie felt free when she was a child and now, after her time in boarding school, feels constricted by the social pressures of being an adult woman (for instance, she cannot kiss Philip because it wouldn’t be proper).
The mention of passing “the golden gates” refers to how, now that she’s grown up, Maggie is barred from the freedoms of childhood the way that Adam and Eve were eventually barred from their original paradise (pushed, as they were, through the gates and into the brutality of the real world).
Related Themes:
