Tag Archives: prideandprejudiceandzombies

Conversation: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is not necessarily an allusion, though without that literary device, the form itself would not exist. Technically, it’s satire. Sort of. It’s really fan fiction.

The best part about a zombie story is the zombies and the survival or lack thereof. The best part about an eighteenth century novel about manners is the exquisite agony of the nuance of every breath, every bat of a eyelid.

If you choose to launch yourself down the rabbit hole of novel genre mash-up, I would caution you to be an absolute expert on each genre expectation first. For example, in Pride and Prejudice times, there is a mannerly way to press the big red nuclear button: the cut direct. If the cut direct is activated, the person to whom the maneuver has been deployed against no longer exists. This person will not be acknowledged in any way, shape, or form. It’s like a one-person ostracization in a public room and believe me, if anyone has mean-girl shunned you in public, everybody and their second cousin knows it.

So if you were to attempt a genre mash-up involving a comedy of manners and oh, zombies, for example, the understanding of those manners should probably be on par with the fan who buys grocery sacks of romance novels weekly or people Just Might Talk. For more about Pride and Prejudice and its intertwining themes with zombies, check out this amazing haiku review at Dear Author.

Conversation: Allusion

Allusion is a vocabulary word that we learn somewhere around high school or secondary school, and that is where it stays – for most of us. The allusion is a callback to a previous work of literature such as the nursery rhymes in WH Auden’s “As I Walked Out One Evening” or any reference to Greek mythologies in modern works, or a shoutout to Beyonce in that bingeable TV series you’ve been mainlining on Netflix. It’s a brief mention that operates a little like an in-joke, to the educated folk who know what’s going on, and a little like shorthand to illuminate a point to the reader without going into detail or grave expense of the story.


All works exist within the greater conversation of concepts that we are constantly having with one another even if we are speaking different languages or living in different millenia. Think of the conversation of zombies. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies exists in part because we are already familiar with two pieces: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, and zombies.


Your allusion choice may anchor a piece in time or attitude, or may say something about the understanding of the characters and thus say something about their class, education, means of understanding the world and events happening around them.


Consider your allusions carefully. They will always say more about you, and the time in which you exist, the media you consume, and your understanding of the world and the events going on around you, than you think you are saying about your characters.


Consider also that a work without allusions risks feeling anchorless, unmoored from the conversation taking place in that space today.