The Facts on File Dictionary of Allusions - Green Valley High School

name was a wooden structure built by Dutch settlers
in the 17th century to defend New York from
attack by the En glish. <strong>The</strong> term often occurs in
connection with the infamous Wall Street Crash
of 1929, when a collapse in share prices triggered
the great depression. Several Wall Street analysts
believe a global recession may be just around the corner.
Walt Disney See disneyfi cation; disneyland.
Walter Mitty (mitee) A daydreamer who escapes
reality by whiling away the time imagining himself
or herself in different roles. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to a
short story called “<strong>The</strong> Secret Life of Walter
Mitty” (1939) by U.S. humorist James Thurber
(1894–1961), which describes how a henpecked
husband called Walter Mitty fi nds relief in his fantasies.
<strong>The</strong> story was fi lmed in 1947 with Danny
Kaye in the central role. “Many men basically have
a Walter Mitty attitude to house work” (V. Donald,
C. Orton, C. Dudley, and S. Ward, What Every
Woman Should Know About Retirement, 1987). See
also billy liar.
Waltons, the (woltbnz) Ste reo type of a large,
loving family living in the impoverished American
Midwest during the depression. <strong>The</strong> Waltons, with
their clean- living all- American values, first
appeared in a semiautobiographical novel and fi lm
(1963) written by Earl Hamner Jr. but are perhaps
best remembered today as the stars of an
immense ly pop u lar, if saccharine- sweet, tele vi sion
series (1972–81). With all those mutual congratulations
and teary- eyed expressions of affection going on
it was like a particularly mushy episode of <strong>The</strong> Waltons.
Wandering Jew A person who changes address
frequently and never seems to settle long in one
war in heaven
place. <strong>The</strong> reference is to a medieval legend which
identifi es the Wandering Jew as a Jew who taunted
Christ on his way to be crucifi ed, or refused to let
him rest at his door; for this sin he was cursed to
wander the world restlessly until the Day of Judgment.
In some versions of the legend he is
described as a cobbler and given the name Ahasuerus.
Various reports of sightings of the Wandering
Jew have been made over the centuries, most
recently in Salt Lake City in 1868. “And Carl,
pointing the bow of his fi ddle at me, ‘Here comes
our wandering Jew, my other little brother, Izzy-
Jack’ ” ( Jack Caplan, Memories of the Gorbals, 1991).
wander in the wilderness To languish as an outcast
while out of offi ce, in exile, or otherwise out of
favor. <strong>The</strong> phrase, typically used in the context of
party politics, is biblical in origin. It appears several
times but is best known in reference to the period
the Israelites spent wandering in the wilderness
after their fl ight from Egypt under the leadership of
Moses. Moses is quoted in Numbers 14:33 warning
his people that it will be many years before their
exile comes to an end: “Your children shall wander
in the wilderness forty years.” After his expulsion from
the party he spent nearly a de cade wandering in the wilderness,
quite unable to reclaim his position in the po litical
limelight.
war in heaven Confl ict or disagreement at the
highest level of an or ga ni za tion, company, or other
institution or group. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to Revelation
12:7–9, which describes John’s vision of a battle
fought between the angels and Satan: “And there
was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his
angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place
found any more in heaven.” Shortly after, rumors
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