allusion - verbmonkeys.comverbmonkeys.com/notes_ap/ldp/ldp_sample_presentation.pdf · nocturne...
TRANSCRIPT
A reference to a well-known person, place, event (history), literary work (book or poem), work of art, or object.
§ If you who Peter Griffin is, then you know that he has an annoying laugh.
§ Therefore, you know how Rene in the sample sentence laughs.
“Rene has a Peter Griffin laugh.”
§ Allusions activate prior knowledge and help the reader understand the text.
§ However, not all allusions are clear. § Sometimes the reader has to work to understand the allusion.
§ Allusions are NOT references to someone or something only a small group of people know.
§ So this is not an allusion: “Sally’s smile looked like my mom’s smile.”
§ Lets the reader understand new information, characters, plot, setting, etc. by connecting it to something already known.
§ Contributes to theme and/or characterization.
Bogotá, Colombia -– Antonio Yammara, a college professor, befriends Ricardo Laverde, a recently released prisoner.
NOCTURNE José Asunción Silva (1865-1896) One night, One night all full of murmurs, of perfumes and the brush of wings, Within whose mellow nuptial glooms there shone fantastic fireflies, Meekly at my side, slender, hushed and pale, As though with infinite presentiment of woe Your very depths of being were troubled,-- By the path of flowers that led across the plain, You came treading [ . . . ]
Gabriel Vásquez uses this allusion to “Nocturne” to characterize the novel’s characters and foreshadow death.
Thesis
“I noticed that Ricardo Laverde was crying. [ . . . ] [Laverde] wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, then his sleeve, with murmurs and music of wings [ . . . ] [he] brought his hands together like someone praying. And your shadow, lean and languid (Vásquez 38).”
From “Nocturne”
In “Nocturne,” the speaker copes with the death of his lover, the very same thing Laverde does. However…
“I noticed that Ricardo Laverde was crying. [ . . . ] [Laverde] wiped the back of his hand across his eyes, then his sleeve, with murmurs and music of wings [ . . . ] [he] brought his hands together like someone praying. And your shadow, lean and languid (Vásquez 38).”
And your shadow 11 Languid, delicate; And my shadow, Sketched by the white moonlight's ray Upon the solemn sands 15
Of the path, were joined together, As one together,
From “Nocturne”