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The Importance Of Biblical And Historical Allusions In Literature

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Allusions can influence the text in a variety of ways. Biblical and historical allusions are often the most recognizable in literature and can have a variety of impact. Biblical and historical allusions create an embellishment of imagery, characterization, and the manifestation of government. An emphasis seen through allusions is in how imagery is portrayed. Bubbly Creek is described as being “constantly in motion, as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselves in its depths”(pg 94). Sinclair used a biblical allusion to demonstrate imagery using a leviathan, which is enormous monster first mentioned in later part of the book of Job in The Bible. The leviathan is enormous and has an indescribable amount of strength and can penetrate a double layer of armor. The contents of Bubbly Creek have an equivalency of a leviathan, which shows how much power Bubbly Creek possesses; as well as how nothing else could ever equate to it in size and its unrestrained moves. Another biblical allusion that Sinclair alludes to is- the Egyptian plague of flies in the book of Exodus and “with the hot weather descended upon Packingtown a veritable Egyptian plague of flies; there could be no describing this-the houses would be black with them”(pg 104). Sinclair uses this allusion to exemplify how horrid the conditions were in Packingtown, the plague of flies in The Bible is described as being so dense in the Pharaoh’s palace and the rest of Egypt was covered and

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