The Word is Murder

Allusions are a common literary device in which an author includes references or responses to other literary and cultural works in a given text. In The Word is Murder, Horowitz uses allusions to reinforce themes, telegraph plot points, and draw distinctions between his role as author and character. In Chapter 1, Anthony describes the building housing Cornwallis and Sons funeral parlor, including the quotation above it: “When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions” (4). Anthony does not identify the quotation—taken from Hamlet—though he does say the chapter had a “clue, which would indicate, quite clearly, the identity of the killer” (32). Thus, the decision not to identify the quote explicitly prevents the reader from finding the reference significant immediately, in keeping with the convention of the detective novel where the reader is left to put pieces of evidence together over time. Other allusions to Hamlet are mentioned explicitly, but their significance is left unexplained. Meadows and Hawthorne have an argument at Diana’s funeral, echoing a scene from the play in which Hamlet spars with Laertes at Ophelia’s funeral. Anthony makes the comparison himself but does not note that Ophelia is deprived of full burial rites due to her own death by suicide, so the reference reinforces that this had been Diana’s wish her for her own death, thwarted by