allusion an indirect or implied reference to a person, place, event, or idea already known by the reader/audience from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, or popular culture

allusion
When creating an allusion, the writer/speaker does NOT describe in detail the person, book, idea, movie, etc. to which the allusion refers. It is often a passing comment or used as metaphor or simile and the writer expects us to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its importance in a text.
Example: Some administrators fear that having no dress code could upon up a Pandora’s box of poor choices when it comes to school fashion . allusion to a Greek myth

allusion
What’s tricky about allusion is that because its indirect, if we don’t know what the writer/speaker/artist is alluding to, we miss the allusion.
Bonus point if you know what this satirical iPhone cartoon is alluding to!

allusion
What’s tricky about allusion is that because its indirect, if we don’t know what the writer/speaker/artist is alluding to, we miss the allusion.
Bonus point if you know what this satirical iPhone cartoon is alluding to!
Allusion to a very famous scene from Stanley Kubrick ’ s 1968 film
2001: A Space Odyssey

Direct Reference:
As they say in The Hunger Games — “May the odds be ever in your favor!”
Allusion:
Hey, “May the odds be ever in your favor!” during your next basketball game.
With a direct reference, a speaker or writer will mention or refer to the original source directly.

“I Have a Dream Speech” by Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Five score years ago , a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation
Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.”
• Allusion to Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, which opened “Four score and seven years ago…” In that speech, which was given during the Civil War, Lincoln promotes the idea of human equality, the very idea King promoted in his famous speech.

• “There can be little doubt that Office is
Microsoft's Achilles heel . Without it, why would anyone buy Windows?”
• Allusion to - Greek Mythology . An Achilles heel is now often referenced when, despite overall strength, a person or thing possesses a weakness that could lead to downfall.
• The writer uses the allusion as a metaphor to argue that while the MS Office software is a great strength to the company, if people should ever stop using it, Microsoft will be in big trouble because they have no other strengths .

• a figure of speech which makes a direct or implied comparison between two things or ideas that are poles apart from each other but where the writer notices a shared characteristic between them

Direct Metaphor: In times of crisis, my friend Steve is a rock.
Indirect Metaphor: “Nothing's spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.
”
~John Proctor to Elizabeth in Act IV when he tries to justify lying to save his life
Indirect Metaphor: The girl lured Connor into her web.

• a question asked for an effect—often to make an argument —that doesn’t actually require an answer

• A rhetorical question implies its own answer; it’s a way of making a point.
• Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?
• Am I going to need to stop this car and pull over?
• Are you kidding me?

How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?
Yes, an’ how many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, an’ how many times must the cannon balls fly before they’re forever banned?
~ Bob Dylan song “Blowin’ in the Wind”

"She's safe, just like I promised . She's all set to marry Norrington, just like she promised . And you get to die for her, just like you promised ."
~Captain Jack Sparrow The Pirates of the Caribbean

repetition
~John Proctor, The Crucible

repetition
• A week after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf
Coast in 2005, the president of Jefferson Parish, Aaron
Broussard, gave an emotional interview with CBS News:
• "Take whatever idiot they have at the top of whatever agency and give me a better idiot .
Give me a caring idiot . Give me a sensitive idiot . Just don ’ t give me the same idiot ."

• repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines
• “ We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.
”
~ Winston Churchill speech during WW II

• using the same grammatical structure or pattern of words, phrases, or clauses to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance
“…government of the by the for the people, people, people
This is specific type of parallelism known as a TRICOLON ( three parallel words, phrases, or clauses repeating ). This is a very popular persuasive tool. A list of three can have a powerful effect on an audience or reader. shall not perish from the earth.”

Nonparallel structure looks like this:
• After school we went , , and
• After school we ate nachos , learned
Greek , and then we did back flips off a roof .
Parallel structure looks like this:
• After school we , , , and .
• After school we ate nachos , learned
Greek , and chugged Dr. Pepper .

parallel structure
"Our transportation crisis will be solved by a bigger plane or a wider road, mental illness with a pill, poverty with a law, slums with a bulldozer, urban conflict with a gas, racism with a goodwill gesture."
~Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness
.

parallel structure
"Our transportation crisis will be solved by a bigger plane or a wider road, comparative adjective/noun comparative adjective/noun mental illness with a pill, poverty with a law, noun/prepositional phrase structure repeats. These two slums with a bulldozer, are slightly less parallel because the urban conflict with a gas, writer added an adjective modifier before the noun.
racism with a goodwill gesture."

parallel structure
,
.
Notice – parallel structure is not about merely repeating words.
All the words can be different. It’s the grammatical pattern that repeats .
~Tim Robbins, actor/writer/director

parallel structure
"Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, very rebellious, and sometimes dominated by a state of immaturity.”
Here is a NONPARALLEL version of the same quote.
Why is it not parallel?

• two opposite ideas are juxtaposed in a sentence with parallel structure to emphasize the contrast
Example: “ That ’ s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.
”
~Astronaut, Neil Armstrong
Example
:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…”
~Opening of Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities

• a short interesting or amusing account/story of an incident used by a speaker or writer to illustrate a point or advance an argument
• In The Crucible when John Proctor is trying to show Rev. Hale why he doesn’t respect
Rev. Parris, he tells the anecdote about the golden candlesticks to make his point
• Not to be confused with an antidote -something used to counteract the effects of a poison or other undesirable element.

• A brief cleverly-worded statement, usually one sentence long, that expresses a general principle or truth about life.
• Examples of aphorisms Ben Franklin wrote:
-
“
Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
”
“ We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
”