Allegory

An allegory is a cohesive set of interconnected symbols, figures, and metaphors that can be abstracted from a basic level of plot so that every element is a stand in for political, religious, or other abstract ideas. It is a work that pieces together understandable and recognizable symbols throughout an entire text so to explain complex concepts outside of the novel’s world. It is often compared to an extended metaphor but its difference lies mainly in that an “extended metaphor…contains language that relates directly to both the source and the target. Allegory, by contrast, typically only has language which evokes what may be seen as the elaborated source domain” (Steen 124).

Works such as Animal Farm and A Brave New World are at once dystopian imaginings and commentary on modern day political and cultural forces but these works never mention the commentaries’ target except in reference to the source material. Also, characters in allegories have no personality other than as a thinly veiled embodiment of a certain moral abstraction. The character of Napoleon and Snowball do not possess any distinctive traits other than what Orwell intended for them to represent. “‘No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?’” (Orwell 35). The overt literal meaning is that of concern for the animal’s welfare. However, Orwell conjures up a sinister parallel with the Soviet Union and its tendency toward revisionist history due to Stalin’s hypocritical propaganda and twisted logic. Every element of the book needs to be connected back to an overreaching network of metaphors and ideas. Orwell accomplishes this dexterously in Animal Farm by connecting the microcosm of an anthropomorphic group of animals to the formation and corruption of the Soviet Union in the 1940s. Then in Brave New World, Huxley uses the source domain of a society anesthetized with pleasure to try and understand a larger and more complex conceptual target. “Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your morality in a bottle. Christianity without tears – that’s what soma is” (Huxley 261). Aldous Huxley is commenting on the seduction of progress and technology in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and mass production uneasy transformation of the world. Soma is part of his allegory on allowing our desires and pleasures to trump truth and knowledge.

There must be on some part of the author a consciousness that he is using characters and images to produce abstractions distilled from life.  So while many stories can have religious and political meanings forcibly extracted from them, a literary allegory demands aspects of the author’s point of view and opinion. “The story [Cinderella] is, basically, an allegory of Christian redemption: Cinderella is the soul, he said; her initial consignment to a place in the ashes represents the soul’s initial confinement to the flesh; the fairy godmother is Grace, the transformation of the pumpkin is transubstantiation” (McQuillan 143).  McQuillan’s account of his friend’s rendition of Cinderella summarizes some of the confusion surrounding what constitutes an allegory. While Cinderella does not have a recognizable personality other than her virtue, the allegory still differs from a fairy tale, fable, metaphor or parable in its penetration into a fictional work. Allegories can usually be distinguished by the length of a work and by the lack of a simple conclusion or moral. Some allegories might have religious or animal imagery but all parables and fables contain lessons conducted through animals or other inanimate objects. Another point of blurriness is whether a narrative can be allegorical but not an allegory. Since reading and criticizing literature requires abstracting ideas from the literal plot, “De Man suggest that allegory is the general condition of narrative since all language can always be read as saying something other than intended by the speaker” (McQuillan 314). The difference between a true allegory and an allegorical work depends on the level of abstraction. Animal Farm and Pilgrim Progress are “purer” forms of allegory since they maintain the separation of target and source material. It is when the lines between the two blur, that an allegory may simply become an extended metaphor inside a larger work.

Works Cited

Steen, Gerard. Finding Metaphor in Grammar and Usage: A Methodological Analysis of Theory and Research. Amsterdam: J. Benjamins, 2007. Print.

Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World: A Novel with the Essay “Brave New World Revisited”. New York: HarperCollins, 2010. Print.

McQuillan, Martin. The Narrative Reader. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. Orlando: Harcourt, 2003. Print.