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

the dev il, as most people hesitated to mention the
latter’s name for fear of summoning him. “And
look at Charles Second, and Louis Fourteen, and
Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward Second,
and Richard Third, and forty more; besides
all them Saxon heptarchies that used to rip around
so in old times and raise Cain” (Mark Twain, <strong>The</strong>
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1884).
raising of Lazarus See lazarus.
rake’s progress <strong>The</strong> downward passage through
life of a dissolute young man or other reprobate.
<strong>The</strong> allusion is to a famous set of pictures painted
and engraved under this title in 1735 by the En glish
artist William Hogarth (1697–1764), in which he
satirized the foibles of contemporary society
through the immorality and ultimate downfall of a
reckless young man- about- town. As a young man
with money in his pocket he followed a rake’s progress
through high society until the cash ran out. See also gin
lane; hogarthian.
Rambo (rambo) A man who relies on physical
strength or force of arms to achieve his purpose.
<strong>The</strong> allusion is to the muscle- bound hero of a
series of adventure fi lms, beginning with First Blood
(1982), starring U.S. actor Sylvester Stallone as
misfi t Vietnam veteran John Rambo, who singlehandedly
overwhelms his foes using a range of
heavy weaponry. <strong>The</strong> fi lms were inspired by a 1971
novel entitled First Blood by David Morrell. <strong>The</strong>
term later became a nickname of U.S. president
Ronald Reagan, who referred approvingly to the
fi lms in one of his speeches, but has otherwise
come to symbolize an unthinking resort to extreme
violence. “Of course, there are other situations when
the toughness that accompanies the Rambo selfimage
is useful in disarming trouble-makers and
preventing further crime, as happened more than
once during fi eld- work” ( John Brewer and Kathleen
Magee, Inside the RUC, 1991).
rape of the Sabine women (saybin) Archetype
of a mass abduction of women. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to a
legendary episode of early Roman history, according
to which the fi rst Romans, under the leadership
of Romulus, fi nding themselves short of
females, invited their male Sabine neighbors to a
festival and meanwhile invaded Sabine territory
and carried off their womenfolk by force. War
subsequently broke out between the two sides,
but they were eventually reconciled. It was like the
rape of the Sabine women, terrifi ed girls seeking to elude
the clutches of their grinning partners.
Rapunzel (rapbnzbl) A girl or woman with very
long hair. <strong>The</strong> allusion is to a story collected in
grimm’s fairy tales by the 19th- century German
folklorists the Brothers Grimm. <strong>The</strong> story
decribes how the girl Rapunzel, imprisoned by a
witch in a high tower, lets down her hair for a
prince to climb up and rescue her. “ ‘What the
hell?’ said Lydia, leaning indignantly out of the
window over the door, like Rapunzel with a haircut”
(Alice T. Ellis, Unexplained Laughter, 1985).
Raskolnikov (raskolnikov) An alienated, angry
young man, especially one who commits murder,
believing himself to be above the law. Rodion
Romanovich Raskolnikov is a central character in
the novel Crime and Punishment (1866) by Rus sian
writer Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–81), in which he
appears as an impoverished student who falls victim
to his own conscience after murdering a
woman pawnbroker and her sister. <strong>The</strong> dictates of his
conscience forced this sorry Texan Raskolnikov to admit to
a crime that no one knew had even been committed.
Raskolnikov
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