Allusion
A reference to history, literature etc. to relate to the audience, make the work understandable and validate the speaker’s purpose.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,”
The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats) Yeats’ use of an allusion to a falcon provides the necessary image and symbol to support his beliefs. While some of his beliefs, such as the two thousand year cycle of history, may seem unbelievable, the allusion serves to align all his beliefs together. With the destruction associated with World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, Yeats believed that the world was on the brink of the Apocalypse. All of history’s events in the two thousand years between Jesus’ death and the present were “turning and turning in the widening gyre” and would succumb to armageddon. Just as the falcon cannot hear the falconer and thus breaks free after it has gone too far away, so will the earth break into anarchy due to all of society’s problems. The widening circles taken by the society emphasize how humans are increasingly become more destructive and left to chaos. If this process continues, then “things fall apart [and] the center cannot hold”
(Yeats). Yeats closely associated this sort of chaos with destructive war associated with World
War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917. In his eyes, these events were stark changes from normal life and thus could only mean Armageddon. However, thinking about the big, and thus irreligious, picture, Yeats’ prediction of the world falling apart is a result of lack of morals. Thus,
Yeats’ views this era as a testing time where the battle between the good and the sinful was drastically increased. Reforms in society and in people need to be made to preserve mankind from the nearing doom.

Metaphor
A comparison (usually symbolic) that doesn’t use “like” or “as” “For I have known them all already, known them all, have known the mornings, evenings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons”
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot Throughout the poem
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
, T.S. Eliot uses a metaphor to illustrate his increased feelings of disillusionment and depression towards his life. Throughout poem the speaker showcases his darkened