Jane Eyre
Author's Language
allusion: a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another
work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known
characters or events. Typical allusions include references to mythology, the Bible,
historical events, etc.
Charlotte Brontë uses a variety of allusions in the beginning chapters of Jane
Eyre. Using the Internet or an unabridged dictionary, explain the meaning of the
following allusions:
1. "Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order,
and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues."
2. "A pause–in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the
Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly
sustained."
3. "A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of
Eutychus by some half dozen of the little girls; who, overpowered with sleep, would
fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half
dead.".
(over)
4. "she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the
troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow
the waters to stagnate round her."
5. "I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms
of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and
looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some
Bluebeard's castle.
6. Who wrote Rasselas? What is it about? Why is it appropriate for a character like
Helen Burns to be reading this work?
7. Note the pathetic fallacy (the attribution of human emotions or characteristics to
inanimate objects or to nature; for example, angry clouds; a cruel wind) at the
beginning of Chapter 9. How does this function as foreshadowing?