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

Madame Arcati
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was a proponent of republicanism and an enemy of
senseless brutality, but history remembers him for
his cold- blooded pragmatism and readiness to
employ dubious methods to achieve his aims. “He
had his little peccadilloes, the quaint and rather
Machiavellian ways to gain his little ends, but he
knew me and I knew him, and in essentials he
made good” (Kathryn Tidrick, Empire and the En glish
Character, 1992).
Madame Arcati (ahrkahtee) <strong>The</strong> archetype of an
eccentric spiritualist medium, especially one who
is middle- aged and full- fi gured. Madame Arcati
appears in the stage comedy Blithe Spirit (1941) by
Noël Coward and provided a memorable role for
Margaret Rutherford in this and the 1945 fi lm version.
<strong>The</strong> lady who turned up for the séance was small
and wiry, not a bit like the Madame Arcati we expected.
Madame Bovary (bovbree) A dissatisfi ed young
woman who yearns for a better life. Emma Bovary
is the title character in Madame Bovary (1857) by
the French novelist Gustave Flaubert (1821–80).
Having married a dull local doctor, she becomes
restless with her quiet provincial existence and
longs for a life of romance and luxury. Her yearnings
lead her into adulterous affairs and debt, with
disastrous consequences. Like Madame Bovary, she
found marriage something of an anticlimax and longed
to escape from her humdrum life.
Madame Defarge (dbfahrj) A vengeful woman
who rejoices in the misfortunes of others. <strong>The</strong>
allusion is to a character in A Tale of Two Cities
(1859) by the British novelist Charles Dickens
(1812–70). Madame Defarge is a fanatic revolutionary
who sits knitting gleefully at the foot of
the guillotine as French aristocrats are executed.
She is implacable in her hostility to the victims of
the Revolution and knits the names of those who
are killed into a long scarf. Her name is sometimes
applied more innocently to a woman who is forever
knitting. “<strong>The</strong> needles of that one clicking like
Madame Defarge, her soiled yellow hair piled up
on her head and red lipstick like a gaping wound”
(Tanith Lee, Dark Dance, 1993).
mad as a hatter Completely mad, or furious. In
most people’s minds the allusion is to the Mad
Hatter character in Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland (1865), whose behavior is particularly
eccentric. <strong>The</strong> phrase “mad as a hatter” is,
however, considerably older, referring to people
involved in the hat- making industry. <strong>The</strong> exposure
of these hatters to the chemical mercury, with
which they came into contact on a daily basis, led
many of them to suffer uncontrollable fi ts or even
to go insane, hence the phrase. <strong>The</strong> simile is also
sometimes attached to one Robert Crab, a 17thcentury
hatter who became well known for giving
away everything he had to the poor and living on a
diet of grass and dock leaves. Carroll, meanwhile,
is thought to have drawn inspiration from a furniture
dealer named <strong>The</strong>ophilus Carter, whose nickname
“the Mad Hatter” refl ected both his eccentric
behavior and his customary wearing of a top hat.
His father is as mad as a hatter.
mad, bad, and dangerous to know A person who
is thoroughly reckless or amoral and likely to cause
trouble to everyone he or she encounters. <strong>The</strong>
phrase was fi rst applied, in her journal, by the
British novelist and aristocrat Lady Caroline Lamb
(1785–1828) to the poet Lord Byron (1788–
1824), with whom she embarked on a turbulent
nine- month affair in 1812. This description of the
byronic personality has stuck and has remained
closely associated with the poet ever since.