Question

Read following sentence from Herman Melville’s short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener".

And here Bartleby makes his home, sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous—a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!
Which literary device is employed?
A. allegory
B. irony
C. allusion
D. symbolism

Answer 1

The literary device which is employed is C. Allusion
In literature, Allusion is a figurative speech that is used to indirectly refers to a subject, an object, or a place. From the excerpt, we can see that the writer highlight the gloomy condition of Bartleby's house by referring it to Ruins of Carthage (an ancient abandoned harbor in Tunisia)