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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
Part 1
Explanation and Analysis—Blue Veins’ Importance:
Near the beginning of the story, the narrator describes debates that have taken place over the Blue Veins Society’s purpose. While doing so, they use a series of metaphors to explain how the Society’s proponents relate to the organization, as seen in the following passage:
Opinions differed, too, as to the usefulness of the society. There were those who had been known to assail it violently as a glaring example of the very prejudice from which the colored race had suffered most; and later, when such critics had succeeded in getting on the inside, they had been heard to maintain with zeal and earnestness that the society was a lifeboat, an anchor, a bulwark and a shield,—a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, to guide their people through the social wilderness.
Here, the narrator describes how members of the Blue Veins Society see the organization as “a lifeboat, an anchor, a bulwark and a shield,” as well as “a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night […] guid[ing] their people through the social wilderness.” These metaphors are all extremely evocative and communicate how deeply the members of the Society appreciate its presence in their lives. As mixed race people, the members of the organization likely feel alienated from both white and Black spaces and therefore feel that the Society is “a lifeboat” keeping them afloat. It also guides their way through a hostile wilderness, as the "pillar of cloud [...] and of fire" guided the people of Israel in the Bible's account of the Israelites' escape from enslavement in Egypt—an allusion that wouldn't be lost on Chesnutt's audience.
While Chesnutt is acknowledging the importance of mixed race societies like this (he was a member of one himself), he is also raising questions about their usefulness here. This comes across in the way he describes how the very people who view the Society as a “lifeboat” or “shield” once viewed it as “a glaring example of the very prejudice from which the colored race had suffered most” and only changed their minds once they were granted admission. Here Chesnutt is subtly criticizing mixed race people who move from solidarity with the (darker-skinned) Black community to comfort with being amongst the more privileged, lighter-skinned—usually higher-class—members of their race.
Related Themes:
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis—Lord Tennyson:
Chesnutt alludes to the 19th-century English poet Lord Tennyson a couple different times in “The Wife of His Youth.” In the following passage, he quotes directly from Tennyson’s poem “A Dream of Fair Women”:
[Mr. Ryder’s] eyes fell on these lines, and he read them aloud to judge better of their effect:—
“At length I saw a lady within call,
Stiller than chisell’d marble, standing there;
A daughter of the gods, divinely tall
And most divinely fair.”
He marked the verse, and turning the page read the stanza beginning, —
“O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret.”
At this moment, Mr. Ryder is looking through his books in order to find quotations he can use in his speech at the ball when he proposes to Molly Dixon. His decision to mark these lines from Tennyson’s poem is significant because the language is centered on how “fair” and “pale” the object of the poet’s affections is. (The title of the poem itself notes the desirability of “fair women.”) Molly—as the narrator has already established—is “whiter” than Mr. Ryder, who himself is so light-skinned that he passes for white.
Chesnutt’s inclusion of this passage is therefore meant to highlight how the light-skinned Black characters in the story have come to value whiteness (or “fairness”) over darkness—a form of internalized racism. It is notable that Mr. Ryder ultimately decides against including these lines from Tennyson because, despite being “the palest lady” likely to attend the ball, Molly does not seem white enough to him to merit these lines. Here Chesnutt highlights how romantic poetry written by white people centered on the desirability of whiteness can feel alienating to Black readers of their work.
Related Themes:
Part 3
Explanation and Analysis—Hamlet:
Near the end of Mr. Ryder’s speech at the ball, he alludes to Shakespeare’s Hamlet by quoting well-known lines from the play, as seen in the following passage:
After we had looked upon the matter from every point of view, I said to him, in words that we all know—
‘This above all: to thine own self be true
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.’
“Then, finally, I put the question to him, ‘Shall you acknowledge her?’”
These lines come when Mr. Ryder is describing an imagined conversation within himself about whether or not he should acknowledge the fact that Eliza Jane is “the wife of his youth.” She is older, darker-skinned, and of a lower social class than he is—all reasons for him to pretend that he does not know her.
And yet Mr. Ryder decides to acknowledge her, at least in part because of these lines from Shakespeare. In this part of the play, the character Polonius gives advice to his son Laertes before going away to school, including the well-known lines “to thine own self be true.” Ultimately, Mr. Ryder decides not to “be false to any man” and proves his loyalty to his former wife by acknowledging their past relationship. Not only does he honor her personally, but he shows his solidarity with the Black community by using his speech to publicize his relationship with a lower-class, darker-skinned Black woman rather than proposing to a light-skinned, higher-class young woman (Molly Dixon) in order to get ahead in their white-dominated society.
Related Themes:
