In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of the valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had not come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus.
-from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden
This passage demonstrates how writers use allusions to establish tone and suggest analogies. Thoreau might have just described the ant war from the perspective of a human observer; instead, he uses allusions to the Iliad and the Trojan War to suggest an analogy between the ant war and human warfare. The first allusion, “whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it” reminds the reader of the Spartan tradition of full commitment to battle; they were so committed that even mothers were unwilling to accept anything but full effort from their sons in battle. The second allusion is to Achilles, “who had nourished his wrath apart” before joining the battle to avenge the killing of his friend Patroclus by Hector. Using allusions, Thoreau elevates this ant war from a mundane, virtually microscopic battle to a great war of epic proportions. At the same time he suggests that this battle of ants is no different from any warfare from human history; it always ends the same: futile death and a battlefield littered with bodies.
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