ALLEGORY AND SYMBOLISM

Allegory 

An allegory is a work that conveys a hidden meaning—usually moral, spiritual, or political—through the use of symbolic characters and events. The story of "The Tortoise and The Hare" is a well-known allegory with a moral that a slow and steady approach (symbolized by the Tortoise) is better than a hasty and overconfident approach (symbolized by the Hare).

Additional keys: 

·  Some allegories have morals that are easy to discern, such as the example of "The Tortoise and The Hare," but others can be so subtle that it becomes unclear whether the author intended for the story to have a double meaning (or be an allegory) at all.

·    Although all allegories use symbolism heavily, not all writing that uses symbolism qualifies as allegory. Allegories are characterized by a use of symbolism that permeates the entire story, to the extent that essentially all major characters and their actions can be understood as having symbolic significance.

·    An allegory can be long and extend over an entire book or even a series of books, or it can be short or a part of a longer work (such as the Allegory of the Cave in Book 7 of Plato's Republic).

Types of Allegory

· Historical allegories: Writing in this category allegorizes historical figures and events. Writers of this kind of allegory may be using symbols to mask the true subject of their writing (for instance, to avoid censorship or punishment), or to effectively distill a complex history into a more simplified and vivid story that will engage readers on an emotional and aesthetic level.

A good example of this type of allegory is George Orwell's Animal Farm, which corresponds pretty closely to the events of the Russian revolution.

· Conceptual allegories: This kind of allegory uses characters and events to symbolize abstract things rather than actual events or people. For example, it's common for writers of conceptual allegories to use characters that embody particular moral qualities, such as purity or love. Most religious and social allegories fall under this category, since they usually don't have to do with a specific person or historical event, but rather some virtue or vice more generally.

In "The Pardoner's Tale," a story in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, a character known as the Pardoner asserts that greed is the root of all evil, and illustrates the point using an allegory in which three drunken men set out to find a character known as "Death," but find a small fortune in gold instead. They end up killing each other in an attempt to secure the entire treasure. The three men can be said to embody greed.

Allegory vs. Symbolism

Allegory and symbolism are often confused, but they are not the same thing.

· Symbolism is the use of symbols, usually physical objects, to represent abstract ideas or qualities. For instance, in To Kill a Mockingbird the mockingbird symbolizes innocence and beauty.

· Allegory is a work that makes extensive use of symbolism in order to communicate a broader moral or meaning. Nearly every aspect of an allegory—from characters, to objects, to dialogue, to settings, to major plot events—can typically be interpreted as having a secondary, symbolic meaning that fits into the allegory's broader meaning. For instance, in the 17th-century allegory Pilgrim's Progress, the protagonist (named "Christian") and his journey, as well as every other character, object, and location he interacts with along the way, symbolically fit into a larger moral or lesson about the proper "path" to reach heaven.

So, to put it another way: an allegory is a type of work or story that represents some idea, concept, or historical event that is different from the literal events contained within the story. Symbolism is the technique that an allegory uses in order to be able to represent and communicate its deeper meaning.

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