English essay intertextuality

Lewis uses an important event from The New Testament, transforming it into a story about redemption. In doing so, he uses Edmund, a character that betrays his savior, Aslan. Generally, the motive of this theme is to introduce other themes, such as evil actions, losing innocence, and redemption.

Since readers take influence from other texts, and while reading new texts they sift through archives, this device gives them relevance and clarifies their understanding of the new texts. For writers, intertextuality allows them to open new perspectives and possibilities to construct their stories.

An allusion is a brief and concise reference that a writer uses in another narrative without affecting the storyline. Intertextuality, on the other hand, uses the reference of the full story in another text or story as its backbone.

In the following example, Hemingway uses intertextuality for the title of his novel. He takes the title of a poem, Meditation XVII, written by John Donne. The excerpt of this poem reads: “No man is an island … and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”